Minimally invasive brain computer interface for fast typing

• Published in: International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (Online) pp. 477 - 480
• Main Authors: Dongyang Li, Hao Han, Xin Xu, Zhipei Ling, Bo Hong
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.05.2017
• Subjects: Bars; Electrodes; Electroencephalography; Minimally invasive surgery; Support vector machines; Training; Visualization
• ISSN: 1948-3554
• DOI: 10.1109/NER.2017.8008393

For a practical intracranial brain computer interface (BCI), minimizing the invasiveness of the electrode implantation is crucial. In this study, we used only one intracranial electrode to implement an online BCI for fast typing. When the subject attended the virtual button containing visual motion stimuli, prominent responses were elicited at the stereo-EEG (SEEG) electrodes within the fMRI defined middle temporal (MT) region, which were composed of motion-onset visual evoked potential (mVEP) around 200 ms post-stimulus and a power increase at the high gamma (70-100 Hz) frequency range. In the online BCI experiment with surgical epilepsy patients, by combining both mVEP and high gamma features and using smart stopping strategy, single SEEG electrode supported a speed of BCI typing up to 14 characters per minute. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a minimally invasive intracranial BCI with only one electrode for fast typing.