Nondestructive prediction of freshness for bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) head by Excitation-Emission Matrix (EEM) analysis based on fish eye fluid: Comparison of BPNNs and RBFNNs

• The fluorescence peak of fish eye fluid increased under variable storage conditions. • Two characteristic components of EEM data of fish eye fluid were extracted by PARAFAC. • Two neural network models for predicting bighead carp freshness were developed. • The performance of the EEM-BPNNs model was good according to cross-validation. • The EEM-BPNNs model can predict bighead carp head freshness using eye fluid. This study established back-propagation neural networks (BPNNs) and radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs) models for evaluating the freshness of bighead carp head storage at different temperatures via the characteristic components of Excitation-Emission Matrix (EEM). Two characteristic components of EEM data of fish eye fluid were extracted by parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) and were the most efficient components to stimulate fluorophores responsible for fish freshness detection during variable temperatures. EEM-RBFNNs and EEM-BPNNs models based on characteristic components of EEM used to predict the fish freshness. The results demonstrated the relative errors of EEM-BPNNs models for hiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and total viable bacteria count (TAC) prediction were less than 10% which were better than those of EEM-RBFNNs models. It indicated that EEM-BPNNs model of bighead carp eye fluid by PARAFAC has a high potential for predicting fish freshness under variable storage conditions.