A small, portable, battery-powered brain-computer interface system for motor rehabilitation.
Motor rehabilitation using brain-computer interface (BCI) systems may facilitate functional recovery in individuals after stroke or spinal cord injury. Nevertheless, these systems are typically ill-suited for widespread adoption due to their size, cost, and complexity. In this paper, a small, portable, and extremely cost-efficient (<;$200) BCI system has been developed using a custom electroencephalographic (EEG) amplifier array, and a commercial microcontroller and touchscreen. The system's performance was tested using a movement-related BCI task in 3 able-bodied subjects with minimal previous BCI experience. Specifically, subjects were instructed to alternate between relaxing and dorsiflexing their right foot, while their EEG was acquired and analyzed in real-time by the BCI system to decode their underlying movement state. The EEG signals acquired by the custom amplifier array were similar to those acquired by a commercial amplifier (maximum correlation coefficient ρ=0.85). During real-time BCI operation, the average correlation between instructional cues and decoded BCI states across all subjects (ρ=0.70) was comparable to that of full-size BCI systems. Small, portable, and inexpensive BCI systems such as the one reported here may promote a widespread adoption of BCI-based movement rehabilitation devices in stroke and spinal cord injury populations.
Colin M
CM
McCrimmon
Ming Wang
Lucas
L
Silva Lopes
Po T
PT
Wang
Alireza
A
Karimi-Bidhendi
Charles Y
CY
Liu
Payam
P
Heydari
Zoran
Z
Nenadic
An H
AH
Do
D062207:Brain-Computer Interfaces; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D020127:Recovery of Function; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D020521:Stroke; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation