11,169 research outputs found

    Brain-Switches for Asynchronous Brain−Computer Interfaces: A Systematic Review

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    A brain–computer interface (BCI) has been extensively studied to develop a novel communication system for disabled people using their brain activities. An asynchronous BCI system is more realistic and practical than a synchronous BCI system, in that, BCI commands can be generated whenever the user wants. However, the relatively low performance of an asynchronous BCI system is problematic because redundant BCI commands are required to correct false-positive operations. To significantly reduce the number of false-positive operations of an asynchronous BCI system, a two-step approach has been proposed using a brain-switch that first determines whether the user wants to use an asynchronous BCI system before the operation of the asynchronous BCI system. This study presents a systematic review of the state-of-the-art brain-switch techniques and future research directions. To this end, we reviewed brain-switch research articles published from 2000 to 2019 in terms of their (a) neuroimaging modality, (b) paradigm, (c) operation algorithm, and (d) performance

    BCI-Based Navigation in Virtual and Real Environments

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    A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that enables people to control an external device with their brain activity, without the need of any muscular activity. Researchers in the BCI field aim to develop applications to improve the quality of life of severely disabled patients, for whom a BCI can be a useful channel for interaction with their environment. Some of these systems are intended to control a mobile device (e. g. a wheelchair). Virtual Reality is a powerful tool that can provide the subjects with an opportunity to train and to test different applications in a safe environment. This technical review will focus on systems aimed at navigation, both in virtual and real environments.This work was partially supported by the Innovation, Science and Enterprise Council of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain), project P07-TIC-03310, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, project TEC 2011-26395 and by the European fund ERDF

    Brain-Computer Interface: comparison of two control modes to drive a virtual robot

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    A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that enables communication and control that is not based on muscular movements, but on brain activity. Some of these systems are based on discrimination of different mental tasks; usually they match the number of mental tasks to the number of control commands. Previous research at the University of Málaga (UMA-BCI) have proposed a BCI system to freely control an external device, letting the subjects choose among several navigation commands using only one active mental task (versus any other mental activity). Although the navigation paradigm proposed in this system has been proved useful for continuous movements, if the user wants to move medium or large distances, he/she needs to keep the effort of the MI task in order to keep the command. In this way, the aim of this work was to test a navigation paradigm based on the brain-switch mode for ‘forward’ command. In this mode, the subjects used the mental task to switch their state on /off: they stopped if they were moving forward and vice versa. Initially, twelve healthy and untrained subjects participated in this study, but due to a lack of control in previous session, only four subjects participated in the experiment, in which they had to control a virtual robot using two paradigms: one based on continuous mode and another based on switch mode. Preliminary results show that both paradigms can be used to navigate through virtual environments, although with the first one the times needed to complete a path were notably lower.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

    Combining brain-computer interfaces and assistive technologies: state-of-the-art and challenges

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    In recent years, new research has brought the field of EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) out of its infancy and into a phase of relative maturity through many demonstrated prototypes such as brain-controlled wheelchairs, keyboards, and computer games. With this proof-of-concept phase in the past, the time is now ripe to focus on the development of practical BCI technologies that can be brought out of the lab and into real-world applications. In particular, we focus on the prospect of improving the lives of countless disabled individuals through a combination of BCI technology with existing assistive technologies (AT). In pursuit of more practical BCIs for use outside of the lab, in this paper, we identify four application areas where disabled individuals could greatly benefit from advancements in BCI technology, namely,“Communication and Control”, “Motor Substitution”, “Entertainment”, and “Motor Recovery”. We review the current state of the art and possible future developments, while discussing the main research issues in these four areas. In particular, we expect the most progress in the development of technologies such as hybrid BCI architectures, user-machine adaptation algorithms, the exploitation of users’ mental states for BCI reliability and confidence measures, the incorporation of principles in human-computer interaction (HCI) to improve BCI usability, and the development of novel BCI technology including better EEG devices

    Toward a semi-self-paced EEG brain computer interface: decoding initiation state from non-initiation state in dedicated time slots.

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    Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) offer a broad class of neurologically impaired individuals an alternative means to interact with the environment. Many BCIs are "synchronous" systems, in which the system sets the timing of the interaction and tries to infer what control command the subject is issuing at each prompting. In contrast, in "asynchronous" BCIs subjects pace the interaction and the system must determine when the subject's control command occurs. In this paper we propose a new idea for BCI which draws upon the strengths of both approaches. The subjects are externally paced and the BCI is able to determine when control commands are issued by decoding the subject's intention for initiating control in dedicated time slots. A single task with randomly interleaved trials was designed to test whether it can be used as stimulus for inducing initiation and non-initiation states when the sensory and motor requirements for the two types of trials are very nearly identical. Further, the essential problem on the discrimination between initiation state and non-initiation state was studied. We tested the ability of EEG spectral power to distinguish between these two states. Among the four standard EEG frequency bands, beta band power recorded over parietal-occipital cortices provided the best performance, achieving an average accuracy of 86% for the correct classification of initiation and non-initiation states. Moreover, delta band power recorded over parietal and motor areas yielded a good performance and thus could also be used as an alternative feature to discriminate these two mental states. The results demonstrate the viability of our proposed idea for a BCI design based on conventional EEG features. Our proposal offers the potential to mitigate the signal detection challenges of fully asynchronous BCIs, while providing greater flexibility to the subject than traditional synchronous BCIs

    Freeze the BCI until the user is ready: a pilot study of a BCI inhibitor

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    In this paper we introduce the concept of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) inhibitor, which is meant to standby the BCI until the user is ready, in order to improve the overall performance and usability of the system. BCI inhibitor can be defined as a system that monitors user's state and inhibits BCI interaction until specific requirements (e.g. brain activity pattern, user attention level) are met. In this pilot study, a hybrid BCI is designed and composed of a classic synchronous BCI system based on motor imagery and a BCI inhibitor. The BCI inhibitor initiates the control period of the BCI when requirements in terms of brain activity are reached (i.e. stability in the beta band). Preliminary results with four participants suggest that BCI inhibitor system can improve BCI performance.Comment: 5th International Brain-Computer Interface Workshop (2011

    Homogeneous Spiking Neuromorphic System for Real-World Pattern Recognition

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    A neuromorphic chip that combines CMOS analog spiking neurons and memristive synapses offers a promising solution to brain-inspired computing, as it can provide massive neural network parallelism and density. Previous hybrid analog CMOS-memristor approaches required extensive CMOS circuitry for training, and thus eliminated most of the density advantages gained by the adoption of memristor synapses. Further, they used different waveforms for pre and post-synaptic spikes that added undesirable circuit overhead. Here we describe a hardware architecture that can feature a large number of memristor synapses to learn real-world patterns. We present a versatile CMOS neuron that combines integrate-and-fire behavior, drives passive memristors and implements competitive learning in a compact circuit module, and enables in-situ plasticity in the memristor synapses. We demonstrate handwritten-digits recognition using the proposed architecture using transistor-level circuit simulations. As the described neuromorphic architecture is homogeneous, it realizes a fundamental building block for large-scale energy-efficient brain-inspired silicon chips that could lead to next-generation cognitive computing.Comment: This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol 5, no. 2, June 201

    A CMOS Spiking Neuron for Dense Memristor-Synapse Connectivity for Brain-Inspired Computing

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    Neuromorphic systems that densely integrate CMOS spiking neurons and nano-scale memristor synapses open a new avenue of brain-inspired computing. Existing silicon neurons have molded neural biophysical dynamics but are incompatible with memristor synapses, or used extra training circuitry thus eliminating much of the density advantages gained by using memristors, or were energy inefficient. Here we describe a novel CMOS spiking leaky integrate-and-fire neuron circuit. Building on a reconfigurable architecture with a single opamp, the described neuron accommodates a large number of memristor synapses, and enables online spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) learning with optimized power consumption. Simulation results of an 180nm CMOS design showed 97% power efficiency metric when realizing STDP learning in 10,000 memristor synapses with a nominal 1M{\Omega} memristance, and only 13{\mu}A current consumption when integrating input spikes. Therefore, the described CMOS neuron contributes a generalized building block for large-scale brain-inspired neuromorphic systems.Comment: This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) 201

    Review of real brain-controlled wheelchairs

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    This paper presents a review of the state of the art regarding wheelchairs driven by a brain-computer interface (BCI). Using a brain-controlled wheelchair (BCW), disabled users could handle a wheelchair through their brain activity, granting autonomy to move through an experimental environment. A classification is established, based on the characteristics of the BCW, such as the type of electroencephalographic (EEG) signal used, the navigation system employed by the wheelchair, the task for the participants, or the metrics used to evaluate the performance. Furthermore, these factors are compared according to the type of signal used, in order to clarify the differences among them. Finally, the trend of current research in this field is discussed, as well as the challenges that should be solved in the future
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