{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]],"date-time":"2026-07-14T18:09:36Z","timestamp":1784052576247,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]],"date-time":"2026-07-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783987200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Dysphagia poses a significant burden on global health, necessitating innovative neurorehabilitation tools. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) based on motor imagery offer a promising avenue, yet the neural differentiation between distinct swallowing paradigms remains under-explored. This study investigates the electrophysiological characteristics of imagined swallowing to establish a robust, subject-independent framework for neural decoding. We recorded EEG signals from 30 participants across two experimental paradigms: imagined saliva and imagined water swallowing. A rigorous analytical pipeline was implemented, featuring artifact removal, multidimensional feature extraction, and fold-wise statistical feature selection utilizing False Discovery Rate (FDR) correction and effect size criteria. To ensure the clinical translatability of the findings, a Leave-One-Subject-Out (LOSO) cross-validation scheme and permutation testing were employed for classification and statistical validation. Our findings demonstrate that EEG-based features can distinguish rest from imagined swallowing with near-ceiling performance (~99% accuracy), regardless of the paradigm. While the discrimination between imagined saliva and water yielded moderate accuracy (~63%), the results reveal critical insights into the inherent neural similarities of these motor imagery tasks. This study provides a statistically validated, subject-independent benchmark for decoding swallowing intentions. The high classification performance underlines the feasibility of EEG-based BCIs for dysphagia rehabilitation. While established as a proof-of-concept in healthy individuals, this framework paves the way for future neurofeedback applications in clinical populations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0353570","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]],"date-time":"2026-07-14T17:36:31Z","timestamp":1784050591000},"page":"e0353570","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Subject-independent EEG classification of imagined swallowing: Impact of saliva vs. water paradigms"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9425-1916","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Sevgi","family":"G\u00f6k\u00e7e Aslan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"B\u00fclent","family":"Y\u0131lmaz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0353570.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.5535\/arm.23069","article-title":"Clinical practice guidelines for oropharyngeal dysphagia","volume":"47","author":"S Yang","year":"2023","journal-title":"Ann Rehabil Med"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0353570.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1186\/s12938-018-0501-9","article-title":"Dysphagia and its effects on swallowing sounds and vibrations in adults","volume":"17","author":"JM Dudik","year":"2018","journal-title":"Biomed Eng Online"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0353570.ref003","article-title":"Swallowing therapy for dysphagia in acute and subacute stroke","volume":"2018","author":"M Bath 3 P","year":"2018","journal-title":"Cochrane Database Syst Rev"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0353570.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"290","DOI":"10.1007\/s00455-007-9084-5","article-title":"Cervical auscultation synchronized with images from endoscopy swallow evaluations","volume":"22","author":"P Leslie","year":"2007","journal-title":"Dysphagia"},{"issue":"6","key":"pone.0353570.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"485","DOI":"10.1097\/00020840-200312000-00014","article-title":"Evaluation of oropharyngeal dysphagia: which diagnostic tool is superior?","volume":"11","author":"SE Langmore","year":"2003","journal-title":"Curr Opin Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0353570.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"62","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jamda.2008.10.003","article-title":"Oropharyngeal dysphagia assessment and treatment efficacy: setting the record straight (response to Campbell-Taylor)","volume":"10","author":"JL Coyle","year":"2009","journal-title":"J Am Med Dir Assoc"},{"key":"pone.0353570.ref007","unstructured":"American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). 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