Performance of brain-computer communication in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating condition which leads to the degeneration of motor neurons. It is a progressive disorder characterized by loss of mobility and verbal communication (Chaudhary et al., 2015). In 50% of the patients life expectancy estimates are 3-5 years after first symptoms’ onset (Bensimon et al., 1994). However, if patients opt for artificial respiration and feeding life expectancy can be relatively healthy with optimal care. A percentage around 50% of patients present mild to severe cognitive impairment (Ringholz et al., 2005). Since first attempts in the nineties (Birbaumer et al., 1999) brain-computer interface (BCI) systems have been successfully developed to secure communication with social environment in the late stages of the disease. However, BCI-systems in ALS do not reach 100% correct classification accuracy and in some case results are below chance level (McCane et al., 2014). The latter phenomenon is known as “BCI illiteracy” while the former one is generally ascribed to attentive issues, specific functional impairment, motivational factors and/or artefacts of the neurophysiological signals. Our view relies on a more complex picture where many factors account for sub-optimal results, especially in the completely locked-in state (CLIS) when lack of communication is crucial. We will explore the critical factors determining sub-optimal BCI-performance, namely: (i) alteration of cognitive and/or emotional/behavioural states (Martens et al., 2014) such as vigilance/attention (Mak et al., 2012; De Massari et al., 2013), (ii) mild cognitive impairment (Volpato et al., 2016), (iii) the “extinction-of-goal-directed-thought” hypothesis (Kübler & Birbaumer, 2008), (iv) circadian rhythm and sleep disorders (Soekadar et al., 2013) and (v) visual sensory domain alterations (Murguialday et al., 2011). These complementary factors suggest the integration of theoretical background on learning principles (Skinner, 1953), advanced technology (Gallegos-Ayala et al., 2014), multiple neural signals recording (Chaudhary et al., 2017) and vigilance/attention monitoring (De Massari et al., 2013; Silvoni et al., 2016) to reliably solve the communication problem in advanced ALS stages

Preprocessing by a Bayesian Single-Trial Event-Related Potential Estimation Technique Allows Feasibility of an Assistive Single-Channel P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface

A major clinical goal of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is to allow severely paralyzed patients to communicate their needs and thoughts during their everyday lives. Among others, P300-based BCIs, which resort to EEG measurements, have been successfully operated by people with severe neuromuscular disabilities. Besides reducing the number of stimuli repetitions needed to detect the P300, a current challenge in P300-based BCI research is the simplification of system’s setup and maintenance by lowering the number N of recording channels. By using offline data collected in 30 subjects (21 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and 9 controls) through a clinical BCI with N=5 channels, in the present paper we show that a preprocessing approach based on a Bayesian single-trial ERP estimation technique allows reducing N to 1 without affecting the system’s accuracy. The potentially great benefit for the practical usability of BCI devices (including patient acceptance) that would be given by the reduction of the number N of channels encourages further development of the present study, for example, in an online setting

Detection of self-paced reaching movement intention from EEG signals

Future neuroprosthetic devices, in particular upper limb, will require decoding and executing not only the user's intended movement type, but also when the user intends to execute the movement. This work investigates the potential use of brain signals recorded non-invasively for detecting the time before a self-paced reaching movement is initiated which could contribute to the design of practical upper limb neuroprosthetics. In particular, we show the detection of self-paced reaching movement intention in single trials using the readiness potential, an electroencephalography (EEG) slow cortical potential (SCP) computed in a narrow frequency range (0.1-1 Hz). Our experiments with 12 human volunteers, two of them stroke subjects, yield high detection rates prior to the movement onset and low detection rates during the non-movement intention period. With the proposed approach, movement intention was detected around 500 ms before actual onset, which clearly matches previous literature on readiness potentials. Interestingly, the result obtained with one of the stroke subjects is coherent with those achieved in healthy subjects, with single-trial performance of up to 92% for the paretic arm. These results suggest that, apart from contributing to our understanding of voluntary motor control for designing more advanced neuroprostheses, our work could also have a direct impact on advancing robot-assisted neurorehabilitation

P300-Based Brain–Computer Interface Communication: Evaluation and Follow-up in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

To describe results of training and 1-year follow-up of brain-communication in a larger group of early and middle stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients using a P300-based brain–computer interface (BCI), and to investigate the relationship between clinical status, age and BCI performance. A group of 21 ALS patients were tested with a BCI-system using two-dimensional cursor movements. A four choice visual paradigm was employed to training and test the brain-communication abilities. The task consisted of reaching with the cursor one out of four icons representing four basic needs. Five patients performed a follow-up test 1 year later. The clinical severity in all patients were assessed with a battery of clinical tests. A comparable control group of nine healthy subjects was employed to investigate performance differences. Nineteen patients and nine healthy subjects were able to achieve good and excellent cursor movements' control, acquiring at least communication abilities above chance level; during follow-up the patients maintained their BCI-skill. We found mild cognitive impairments in the ALS group which may be attributed to motor deficiencies, while no relevant correlation has been found between clinical data and BCI performance. A positive correlation between age and the BCI-skill in patients was found. Time since training acquisition and clinical status did not affect the patients brain-communication skill at early and middle stage of the disease. A brain-communication tool can be used in most ALS patients at early and middle stage of the disease before entering the locked-in stage

تعليم الإنشاء باستخدام الفيس بوك وتأثيره في إنجاز الطلبة في مهارة التعبير التحريري

ABSTRAK Mata pelajaran insyak bertujuan agar siswa dapat mengarang dan mengungkapkan pikiran dan perasaannya dengan cara menulis dengan baik,bermutu dan sesuai dengan kaidah bahasa arab., Hal ini tentunya dapat terwujud jika insyak diajarkan dengan memakai media,media merupakan unsur yang penting dalam pembelajaran, untuk mencapai pembelajaran yang efektif dan menyenangkan. namun pada kenyataannya mayoritas siswa Makhad Darul Ulum Jambo Tape fasih dalam berbicara akan tetapi sangat lemah dalam menulis. Melihat fenomena tersebut, maka peneliti ingin menerapkan media facebook untuk membantu meningkatkan kemampuan menulis melalui mata pelajaran insyak Rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini adalah : (۱) Bagaimana penerapan Pengajaran insyakdengan menggunakan media facebook terhadap siswa Ma’had Darul Ulum Jambo Tape Banda Aceh? (۲) Sejauhmana pengaruh pengajaran insyak dengan menggunakan media facebook terhadap prestasi siswa pada ketrampilan menulis? Adapun tujuan penelitian ini adalah: (۱) untuk Mendiskripsikan bagaimana penggunaan facebook dalam pengajaran insyak terhadap siswa Ma’had Darul Ulum Jambo Tape Banda Aceh. (۲) Untuk Mendiskripsikansejauhmana pengaruh penggunaan facebook dalam pengajaran insya terhadap prestasi belajar siswa pada ketrampilan menulis. Metodepeneltian yang digunakan oleh peneliti didalam penelitian ini adalah pendekatan kuantitatif. Adapun jenis penelitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian eksperimen yang melakukan uji coba keberhasilan pada pengajaran insya dengan menggunakan media facebook.Instrument yang digunakan peneliti adalah observasi,angketdan test. Hasil penelitian yang diperoleh adalah Pembelajaran insyak dengan menggunakan facebook sebagai berikut (۱) Langkah-langkah pembelajaran insyak dengan menggunakan facebook (a) Peneliti memeilih media facebook dan materi- materinya dengan menganalisa kebutuhan siswa dan permasalahan- permasalahan dalam pembelajaran insyak.(b) peneliti memilih dua aplikasi yang ada didalam facebook yaitu chat dan coment (c) Peneliti menulis kompetensi dasar dan indikator(d) Peneliti membuat akun dan password untuk setiap siswa (e) Peneliti menulis soal dan komentar darinya dan mengirimkannya kepada siswa (f) Peneliti mengadakan evaluasi (g) Penulis membatasi tulisan dari ٥-۱۰ baris. (۲) hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa belajar insyak dengan memakai facebook sangat berpengaruh terhadap prestasi belajar siswa dan efektif dalam meningkatkan kemampuan menulis murid kelas limaaliyah di Ma’had Darul Ulum Banda Aceh, peneliti telah membandingkan hasil nilai dar kedua kelompok yaitu kelompok eksperiment dan non eksperiment,ini terlihat pada ujian bakdi bahwa nilai t (۲,٤۷) dalam penelitian ini lebih besar dari nilai t-test(۲,۷) pada tingkatan ٥%. Dari sini kita dapat mengetahu bahwa hasil penelitian tersebut dapat diterima (maqbul) dengan kata lain bahwa belajar insyak dengan menggunakan facebook sangat berpengaruh dalam belajar siswa khususnya dalam ketrampilan menulis. ABSTRACT Insyak subjects intended for students to write and express their thoughts and feelings by writing a good, quality, and in accordance with the rules of the Arabic language., This could happen if insyak taught by means of media, media is an important element in learning, to achieve effective learning and fun. but in fact the majority of students Makhad Darul Ulum Jambo Tape fluent in speaking but very weak in writing. Looking at the phenomenon, the researchers wanted to implement facebook media to help improve writing skills through subjects insyak Formulation of the problem statement in this research were :(1) How is the Teaching insyak study using facebook for student Ma'had Darul Ulum Jambo Tape Banda Aceh? (2) How far the influence of teaching insyak using facebook on student achievement in writing skills? The purpose of this kind researc is to: (1) describe how to use facebook in the teaching of students at Ma'had Darul Ulum Jambo Tape Banda Aceh. (2) to describe the extent of the influence of the use of facebook in teaching willing to student achievement in writing skills. Other research methods used by researchers in this study is a quantitative approach. The type of study is a research experiment to test the success of the teaching of media willing to use facebook. Research instruments used were observation, questionnaires and tests. The results obtained are insyak Learning to use facebook as follows (1) learning to use facebook insyak analyze students' needs and problems in learning insyak. (2) the results showed that learning to use facebook insyak great influence on student achievement and effective in improving the writing skills of fifth graders Ma'had Darul Ulum aliyah in Banda Aceh, was seen in the value of t in this study is greater than the value of t -test at 5

Data used to generate Fig2B and Patient G column of Table1

The mat file consists of the data from every training and feedback session performed by patient G. This data was used to generate Figure 2B and Patient G column of Table 1

True positive rate and false positive rate used to generate S2_Fig3A and S2_Table6

In the attached file, first column corresponds to true positive (TP), second column corresponds to false positive (FP), third column corresponds to false negative (FN), fourth column corresponds to true negative (TN), fifth column corresponds to true positive rate (TPR) and sixth column corresponds to false positive rate (FPR), while each row corresponds to the session number. The data was used to generate patient's B, "Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the binary support vector machine (SVM) classifier" and "Contingency table" during training session, S2_Fig3A and S2_Table6, respectively

Data used to generate Fig1A and Patient F column of Table1

The mat file consists of the data from every training and feedback session performed by patient F. This data was used to generate Fig1A and Patient F column of Table 1

Data used to generate Fig1D and Patient W column of Table1

<p>The mat file consists of the data from every training and feedback session performed by patient W. This data was used to generate Fig1D and Patient W column of Table 1.</p

fNIRS, EEG and EOG classification accuracy used to generate Fig 5

<p>fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy), EEG (Electroencephalograph) and EOG (Electrooculogram) classification accuracy of different sessions performed by Patient W, was used to generate Fig 5.</p