Brain Computer interface

INTRODUCTION
Brain Computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that recognized users command only from his or her brainwaves and reacts according to them. For this purpose PC and subject is trained. Simple task can consist of desired motion of an arrow displayed on the screen only through subject's imaginary of something (e.g. motion of his or her left or right hand). As the consequence of imaging process, certain characteristics of the brainwaves are raised and can be used for user's command recognition, e.g. motor mu waves (brain waves of alpha range frequency associated with physical movements or intention to move). An Electroencephalogram based BrainComputer-Interface (BCI) provides a new communication channel between the human brain and a computer. Patients who suffer from severe motor impairments (late stage of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), severe cerebral palsy, head trauma and spinal injuries) may use such a BCI system as an alternative form of communication by mental activity. The use of EEG signals as a vector of communication between men and machines represents one of the current challenges in signal theory research. The principal element of such a communication system, more
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Brain Computer interface known as Brain Computer Interface, is the interpretation of the EEG signals related to the characteristic parameters of brain electrical activity. The role of signal processing is crucial in the development of a real-time Brain Computer Interface. Until recently, several improvements have been made in this area, but none of them have been successful enough to use them in a real system. The goal of creating more effective classification extraction. The main objective of this project is the establishment of a Time Frequency method, which allows EEG signal classification between two given tasks (geometric figure rotation and mental letter composing), as well as the familiarization with the state of the art in time-frequency and Brain Computer Interface. The extension of this method to a five-task classification problem will be also considered. The electrical nature of the human nervous system has been recognized for more Than a century. It is well known that the variation of the surface potential activities distribution on the scalp reflects functional algorithms, have focused numerous investigations in the search of new techniques of feature

emerging from the underlying brain [2.1]. This surface potential variation can be recorded by affixing an array of electrodes to the scalp, and measuring the voltage
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Brain Computer interface between pairs of these electrodes, which are then filtered, amplified, and recorded. The resulting data is called the EEG. Fig. 1-1 shows waveforms of a 10 second EEG segment containing six recording channels, while the recording sites are illustrated in Fig. 2-2.

Figure 2-1. A segment of a multichannel EEG of an adult subject during a multiplication task.

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Brain Computer interface

Each site has a letter (to identify the lobe) and a number or another letter to identify the hemisphere Location. The letters F, T, C, P, and O stand for Frontal, Temporal, Central, Parietal and Occipital. (Note that there is no central, but this is just used for identification process). Even numbers (2, 4, 6, and 8) refer to the right hemisphere and odd numbers (1, 3, 5, and 7) refer to the left hemisphere. The z refers to an electrode placed on the midline. Nasion: point between the forehead and nose. Inions: Bump at back of skull

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Brain Computer interface

System overview A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that acquires and analyzes neural Signals with the goal of creating a communication channel directly between the brain and the computer. Such a channel potentially has multiple uses. For example: Bioengineering applications: assist devices for disabled people. Human subject monitoring: sleep disorders, neurological diseases, attention Monitoring, and/or overall "mental state".

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Brain Computer interface Neuroscience research: real-time methods for correlating observable behavior With recorded neural signals. Man Machine Interaction: Interface devices between human and computers, Machines, For many years, people have speculated that

electroencephalographic (EEG) activity or other measures of brain function might provide this new channel. Over the past decade, productive BCI research programs have begun. Facilitated and encouraged by the new understanding of brain functions and by the low-cost computer equipments, these programs have concentrated mainly in developing new communication and control technologies for people with severe neuromuscular disorders. The immediate goal is to provide communication capabilities so that any subject can control the external world without using the brain's normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles. Nowadays, such activities drive their efforts in: Brain (neural) signal acquisition: development of both invasive and non-invasive Techniques for high quality signal acquisition. Algorithms and processing: advanced machine learning and signal processing

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Brain Computer interface Algorithms, which take advantage of cheap/fast computing power (i.e. Moore's Law2) to enable online real-time processing. Underlying neuroscience: a better understanding of the neural code, the functional neuro-anatomy, the physiology and how these are related to perception and Cognition, enabling signals to be interpreted in the context of the neurobiology. Present BCIs use EEG activity recorded at the scalp to control cursor movement , Select letters or icons, or operate a neuroprosthesis. The central element in each BCI is a translation devices. his algorithm BCI or that converts on the electrophysiological input from the user into output that controls user external operation depends in effective interaction between two adaptive controllers: the who encodes her commands electrophysiological input provided to the BCI, and the computer which recognizes the command contained in the input and expresses them in the device control. Current BCIs have maximum information transfer rates of 5-25 bits/min. Achievement of greater speed and accuracy depends on improvements in: Signal acquisition: methods for increasing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to interference ratio (S/I)) as well as optimally combining spatial and temporal
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Brain Computer interface Information. Single trial analysis: overcoming noise and interference in order to avoid Averaging and maximize bit rate. Co-learning: jointly optimizing combined man-machine system and taking Advantage of feedback. Experimental paradigms for interpretable readable signals: mapping the task to The brain state of the user (or vice versa). Understanding algorithms and models within the context of the neurobiology: Building predictive models having neurophysiologic ally meaningful parameters And incorporating physically and biologically meaningful priors. The common structure of a Brain Computer Interface is the following. 1) Signal Acquisition: the EEG signals are obtained from the brain through invasive or non-invasive methods (for example, electrodes). After, the signal is amplified and sampled. 2) Signal Pre-Processing: once the signals are acquired, it is necessary to clean them. 3) Signal Classification: once the signals are cleaned, they will be processed and
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Brain Computer interface Classified to find out which kind of mental task the subject is performing. 4) Computer Interaction: once the signals are classified, they will be used by an Appropriate algorithm for the development of a certain application.

BCI common structure.

BRAIN SIGNALS Brain patterns form wave shapes that are

commonly sinusoidal. Usually, they are measured from peak to peak and normally range from 0.5 to 100 V in amplitude, which is about 100 times lower than ECG signals. By means of Fourier transform power spectrum from the raw EEG signal is derived. In power spectrum contribution of sine waves with different frequencies are

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Brain Computer interface visible. Although the spectrum is continuous, ranging from 0 Hz to one half of sampling frequency, the brain state of the individual may make certain frequencies more dominant. Brain waves have been categorized into four basic groups. Beta (>10 Hz)

Alpha (8-13 Hz) Theta (4-8 Hz) Delta (0.5-4 Hz) The best - known and most extensively studied rhythm of the human brain is the normal alpha rhythm. It can be usually observed better in the posterior and occipital regions with typical amplitude about 50 V (P-P). Alpha activity is induced by closing the eyes and by relaxation, and abolished by eye opening or alerting by any mechanism (thinking, calculating).

BRAIN

SIGNALS

MEASUREMENT

AND

PROCESING
Encephalographic measurements is consisted of Electrodes with conductive media
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Brain Computer interface Amplifiers with filters A/D converter Electrodes read signal from the head surface,

amplifiers bring the microvolt signals into range where they can be digitalized accurately, converter changes signals from analog to digital form, and personal computer process this data. Electrodes The EEG electrodes and their proper function are critical for acquiring appropriately high quality data for interpretation. Many types of electrodes exist, often with different characteristics. Basically there are following types of electrodes: Disposable (gel-less and pre-gelled types) Reusable disc electrodes (gold, silver, stainless steel or tin) Headbands and electrode caps Saline-based electrodes Needle electrodes For multichannel montages, electrode caps are

preferred, with number of electrodes installed on this surface. Commonly used scalp electrodes consist of AgAgCl discs, 1 to 3 mm in diameter, with long flexible leads that be plugged into an amplifier. AgCl electrodes can accurately record also very slow changes in potential.
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Brain Computer interface Needle electrodes are used for long time recordings and are invasively inserted under scalp. In 1958, International Federation on Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology adopted standardization for electrode placement called 10-20 electrode placement system. This system standardized physical placement and designations of electrodes an the scalp. The head is divided into proportional distances from prominent skull landmarks (nasion, pre auricural points and inions) to provide adequate coverage of all regions of the brain. Label 10-20 designates proportional distance on percents between ears and nose where points for electrodes are chosen. Best results are in with invasive measurement techniques, where electrodes are direct on the brain and are scanning only the small location.

Picture above describes usual electrodes placement

Amplifiers and filters

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Brain Computer interface The signals need to be amplified to make them compatible with A/D converters. Amplifiers adequate to measure these signals have to satisfy very specific requirements. They have to provide amplification selective to the physiological signal, reject superimposed noise and interference signals, and guarantee protection from damages through voltage and current surges for both patients and electronic equipment. The basic requirements that a biopotential amplifier has no satisfy are: The physiological process to be monitored should

not be influenced in any way by the amplifier. The measured signal should not be distorted. The amplifier should provide the best possible The amplifier has to offer protection of the patient The amplifier itself has to be protected against separation of signal and interferences. from any hazard of electric shock. damages that migh result from high input voltages as they occur during the application of defibrillators or electrosurgical instrumentation.

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Brain Computer interface

Artifacts
Among basic evaluation of the EEG traces belongs scanning for signal distortions called art effects. Usually it is a sequence with higher amplitude and different shape on comparison to signal sequences that doesn't suffer by anu large contamination. The artifact in the recorded EEG may be either patient- related or technical. Patient - related artifacts are unwanted physiological signals that may significantly disturb the EEG. Technical artifacts, such as AC power line noise, can be decreased by decreasing electrode impedance and by shorter electrode wires. The most common EEG artifact sources can be classified in following way: Patient related: Any minor body movements EMG ECG (pulse, pace-maker) Eye movements sweating Technical 50/60 Hz Impedance fluctuation

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Brain Computer interface Cable movements Broken wire contacts Too much electrode paste or dried pieces Low battery Excluding the artifact segments from the EEG traces can be managed by the trained experts or automatically. For better discrimination of different physiological artifacts, additional electrodes for monitoring eye movement, ECG, and muscle activity may be important. In Brain science Institute RIKEN was developed the ICELAB for signal processing which is describing the picture below.

The

preprocessing

tools

include:

Principal

Component Analysis (PCA), prewhitening, filtering: High Pass Filtering (HPF), Low Pass Filtering (LPF), Sub band filters (Butterworth, Chebyshev, Elliptic) with adjustable

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Brain Computer interface order of filters, frequency sub bands and the number of sub bands. The post processing tools includes: Deflation and Reconstruction removing Moreover, the ("cleaning") ICALAB of original have raw or data by and undesirable components, Toolboxes noise artifacts.

flexible

extendable structure with; the possibility to extend the toolbox by the users by adding their own algorithms. The algorithms can perform not only ICA ;but also Second Order Statistics Blind Source Separation (BSS) Sparse Component Analysis (SCA), Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF), Smooth Component Analysis (SmoCA), Factor Analysis (FA) and any other possible matrix factorization of the form X=HS+N or Y=WX where H=W+ is a mixing matrix or a matrix of basis He ICA/BSS algorithms are pure mathematical formulas, powerful, but rather mechanical procedures: There is not very much left for the user to do after the machinery has been optimally implemented. The successful and efficient use of the ICALAB vectors. Strongly depends on a priori knowledge, common sense and appropriate use of the preprocessing and post processing tools.

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Brain Computer interface

STRUCTURE OF BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE

The common structure of a Brain-Computer Interface is the following: 1) Signal Acquisition: the EEG signals are obtained from the brain through invasive or non-invasive methods (for example, electrodes). 2) Signal Pre-Processing: once the signals are acquired, it is necessary to clean them. 3) Signal Classification: once the signals are cleaned, they will be processed and classified to find out which kind of mental task the subject is performing. 4) Computer Interaction: once the signals are classified, they will be used by an appropriate algorithm for the development of a certain application.

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Brain Computer interface

BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE ARCHITECTURE The processing unit is subdivided into a preprocessing unit, responsible for artifact detection, and a feature extraction and recognition unit that identifies the command sent by the user to the BCI. The output subsystem

generates an action associated to this command.

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Brain Computer interface Neuropsychological signals used in BCI applications. Interfaces based on brain signals require on-line detection of mental states from Spontaneous activity: different cortical areas are activated while thinking different things (i.e. a mathematical computation, an imagined arm movement, a music composition, etc...). The information of these "mental states" can be recorded with different methods. Neuropsychological signals can be generated by one or more of the following three: implanted methods, evoked potentials (also known as event related potentials), and operant conditioning. Both evoked potential and operant conditioning methods are normally externally-based BCIs as the electrodes are located on the scalp. Describes the different signals in common use. It may be noted that some of the described signals fit into multiple categories. As an example, single neural recordings may use operant conditioning in order to train neurons for control or may accept the natural occurring signals for control. Where this occurs, the signal is described under the Implanted methods use signals from single or small groups of neurons in order to control a BCI. Evoked potentials (EPs) are brain potentials that are evoked by the occurrence of a sensory stimulus. They are usually obtained by averaging a number of brief EEG segments time-registered to a stimulus in a simple task. In a BCI, EPs may provide control when the BCI application

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Brain Computer interface produces the appropriate stimuli. This paradigm has the benefit of requiring little to no training to use the BCI at the cost of having to make users wait for the relevant stimulus presentation. EPs offer discrete control for almost all users, as EPs are an inherent response. Operant conditioning is a method for modifying the behavior (an operant), which Utilizes contingencies between a discriminative stimulus, an operant response, and a reinforce to change the probability of a response occurring again in a given situation. In the BCI framework, it is used to train the patients to control their EEG.as it is presented in table shown in below, several methods use operant conditioning on spontaneous EEG signals for BCI control. The main feature of this kind of signals is that it enables continuous rather than discrete control. This feature may also serve as a drawback: continuous control is fatiguing for subjects and fatigue may cause changes in performance since control is learned.

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Brain Computer interface

Common neuropsychological signals used in BCIs

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Brain Computer interface Human BCI research Invasive BCIs Invasive BCI research has targeted repairing damaged sight and providing new functionality to paralyzed people. Invasive BCIs are implanted directly into the grey matter of the brain during neurosurgery. As they rest in the grey matter, invasive devices produce the highest quality signals of BCI devices but are prone to scar-tissue build-up, causing the signal to become weaker or even lost as the body reacts to a foreign object in the brain. Jens Naumann, a man with acquired blindness, being interviewed about his vision BCI on CBS's The Early Show In vision science, direct brain implants have been used to treat non-congenital (acquired) blindness. One of the first scientists to come up with a working brain interface to restore sight was private researcher William Dobelle. Dobelle's first prototype was implanted into "Jerry," a man blinded in adulthood, in 1978. A single-array BCI containing 68 electrodes was implanted onto Jerrys visual cortex and succeeded in producing phosphates, the sensation of seeing light. The system included cameras mounted on glasses to send signals to the implant. Initially, the implant allowed Jerry to see shades of grey in a limited field of vision at a low frame-rate. This also required him to be hooked up to a two-ton mainframe, but shrinking
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Brain Computer interface electronics and faster computers made his artificial eye more portable and now enable him to perform simple tasks unassisted.

Dummy unit illustrating the design of a BrainGate interface In 2002, Jens Naumann, also blinded in adulthood, became the first in a series of 16 paying patients to receive Dobelles second generation implant, marking one of the earliest commercial uses of BCIs. The second generation device used a more sophisticated implant enabling better mapping of phosphenes into coherent vision. Phosphenes are spread out across the visual field in what researchers call the starry-night effect. Immediately after his implant, Jens was able to use his imperfectly restored vision to drive slowly around the parking area of the research institute. BCIs focusing on motor neuroprosthetics aim to either restore movement in paralyzed individuals or provide
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Brain Computer interface devices to assist them, such as interfaces with computers or robot arms. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta led by Philip Kennedy and Roy Bakay were first to install a brain implant in a human that produced signals of high enough quality to simulate movement. Their patient, Johnny Ray, suffered from locked-in syndrome after suffering a brainstem stroke. Rays implant was installed in 1998 and he lived long enough to start working with the implant, eventually learning to control a computer cursor. Tetraplegic Matt Nagle became the first person to control an artificial hand using a BCI in 2005 as part of the first nine-month human trial of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnologys BrainGate chip-implant. Implanted in Nagles right precentral gyrus (area of the motor cortex for arm movement), the 96-electrode Brain Gate implant allowed Nagle to control a robotic arm by thinking about moving his hand as well as a computer cursor, lights and TV. Partially-invasive BCIs Partially invasive BCI devices are implanted inside the skull but rest outside the brain rather than within the grey matter. They produce better resolution signals than noninvasive BCIs where the bone tissue of the cranium deflects and deforms signals and have a lower risk of forming scartissue in the brain than fully-invasive BCIs.
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Brain Computer interface Electro cortico graphy (ECoG) measures the electrical activity of the brain taken from beneath the skull in a similar way to non-invasive electroencephalography (see below), but the electrodes are embedded in a thin plastic pad that is placed above the cortex, beneath the dura mater. ECoG technologies were first trialed in humans in 2004 by Eric Leuthardt and Daniel Moran from Washington University in St Louis. In a later trial, the researchers enabled a teenage boy to play Space Invaders using his ECoG implant. This research indicates that it is difficult to produce kinematic BCI devices with more than one dimension of control using ECoG. Light Reactive Imaging BCI devices are still in the realm of theory. These would involve implanting a laser inside the skull. The laser would be trained on a single neuron and the neuron's reflectance measured by a separate sensor. When the neuron fires, the laser light pattern and wavelengths it reflects would change slightly. This would allow researchers to monitor single neurons but require less contact with tissue and reduce the risk of scartissue build-up. This signal can be either subdural or epidural, but is not taken from within the brain parenchyma itself. It has not been studied extensively until recently due to the limited access of subjects. Currently, the only manner to acquire the signal for study is through the use of patients

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Brain Computer interface requiring invasive monitoring for localization and resection of an epileptogenic focus. ECoG is a very promising intermediate BCI modality because it has higher spatial resolution, better signal-tonoise ratio, wider frequency range, and lesser training requirements than scalp-recorded EEG, and at the same time has lower technical difficulty, lower clinical risk, and probably superior long-term stability than intracortical single-neuron recording. This feature profile and recent evidence of the high level of control with minimal training requirements shows potential for real world application for people with motor disabilities. Non-invasive BCIs As well as invasive experiments, there have also been experiments in humans using non-invasive neuroimaging technologies as interfaces. Signals recorded in this way have been used to power muscle implants and restore partial movement in an experimental volunteer. Although they are easy to wear, non-invasive implants produce poor signal resolution because the skull dampens signals, dispersing and blurring the electromagnetic waves created by the neurons. Although the waves can still be detected it is more difficult to determine the area of the brain that created them or the actions of individual neurons. Animal BCI research

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Brain Computer interface Several laboratories have managed to record signals from monkey and rat cerebral cortexes in order to operate BCIs to carry out movement. Monkeys have navigated computer cursors on screen and commanded robotic arms to perform simple tasks simply by thinking about the task and without any motor output. Other research on cats has decoded visual signals. Early work Studies that developed algorithms to reconstruct movements from motor cortex neurons, which control movement, date back to the 1970s. Work by groups led by Schmidt, Fetz and Baker in the 1970s established that monkeys could quickly learn to voluntarily control the firing rate of individual neurons in the primary motor cortex via closed-loop operant conditioning, a training method using punishment and rewards. In the 1980s, Apostolos Georgopoulos at Johns

Hopkins University found a mathematical

relationship

between the electrical responses of single motor-cortex neurons in rhesus macaque monkeys and the direction that monkeys moved their arms (based on a cosine function). He also found that dispersed groups of neurons in different areas of the brain collectively controlled motor commands but was only able to record the firings of neurons in one area at a time because of technical limitations imposed by his equipment.
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Brain Computer interface There has been rapid development in BCIs since the mid-1990s. Several groups have been able to capture complex brain motor centre signals using recordings from neural ensembles (groups of neurons) and use these to control external devices, including research groups led by Richard Andersen, John Donohue, Phillip Kennedy, Miguel Nicolelis, and Andrew Schwartz. Prominent research successes Phillip intracortical Kennedy and colleagues interface built by the first

brain-computer

implanting

neurotrophic-cone electrodes into monkeys.

Yang Dan and colleagues' recordings of cat vision using a BCI implanted in the lateral geniculate nucleus (top row: original image; bottom row: recording) In 1999, researchers led by Yang Dan at University of California, Berkeley decoded neuronal firings to reproduce images seen by cats. The team used an array of electrodes embedded in the thalamus (which integrates all of the
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Brain Computer interface brains sensory input) of sharp-eyed cats. Researchers targeted 177 brain cells in the thalamus lateral geniculate nucleus area, which decodes signals from the retina. The cats were shown eight short movies, and their neuron firings were recorded. Using mathematical filters, the researchers decoded the signals to generate movies of what the cats saw and were able to reconstruct recognizable scenes and moving objects. Similar results in humans have been since then achieved by researchers in Japan (see below). Miguel Nicolelis has been a prominent proponent of using multiple electrodes spread over a greater area of the brain to obtain neuronal signals to drive a BCI. Such neural ensembles are said to reduce the variability in output produced by single electrodes, which could make it difficult to operate a BCI. After conducting initial studies in rats during the 1990s, Nicolelis and his colleagues developed BCIs that decoded brain activity in owl monkeys and used the devices to reproduce monkey movements in robotic arms. Monkeys have advanced reaching and grasping abilities and good hand manipulation skills, making them ideal test subjects for this kind of work. By 2000, the group succeeded in building a BCI that reproduced owl monkey movements while the monkey operated a joystick or reached for food. The BCI operated in
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Brain Computer interface real time and could also control a separate robot remotely over Internet protocol. But the monkeys could not see the arm moving and did not receive any feedback, a so-called open-loop BCI.

Diagram of the BCI developed by Miguel Nicolelis and colleagues for use on Rhesus monkeys Later experiments by Nicolelis using rhesus monkeys, succeeded in closing the feedback loop and reproduced monkey reaching and grasping movements in a robot arm. With their deeply cleft and furrowed brains, rhesus monkeys are considered to be better models for human neurophysiology than owl monkeys. The monkeys were trained to reach and grasp objects on a computer screen by manipulating a joystick while corresponding movements by a robot arm were hidden. The monkeys were later shown the robot directly and learned to control it by viewing its movements. The BCI used velocity predictions to control reaching movements and simultaneously predicted hand gripping force. Other labs that develop BCIs and algorithms that decode neuron signals include John Donohue from Brown
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Brain Computer interface University, Andrew Schwartz from the University of Pittsburgh and Richard Andersen from Caltech. These researchers were able to produce working BCIs even though they recorded signals from far fewer neurons than Nicolelis (1530 neurons versus 50200 neurons). Donoghue's group reported training rhesus monkeys to use a BCI to track visual targets on a computer screen with or without assistance of a joystick (closed-loop BCI). Schwartz's group created a BCI for three-dimensional tracking in virtual reality and also reproduced BCI control in a robotic arm. The group created headlines when they demonstrated that a monkey could feed itself pieces of zucchini using a robotic arm controlled by the animal's own brain signals. Andersen's group used recordings of premovement activity from the posterior parietal cortex in their BCI, including signals created when experimental animals anticipated receiving a reward. In addition of to limb predicting kinematic BCIs and that kinetic predict

parameters

movements,

electromyography or electrical activity of muscles are being developed. Such BCIs could be used to restore mobility in paralyzed limbs by electrically stimulating muscles.

Commercialization and companies

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Brain Computer interface John Donoghue and fellow researchers founded Cyber kinetics. Now listed on a US stock exchange and known as Cyber kinetic Neurotechnology Inc, the company markets its electrode arrays under the Brain Gate product name and has set the development of practical BCIs for humans as its major goal. The Brain Gate is based on the Utah Array developed by Dick Norman. Philip Kennedy founded Neural Signals in 1987 to develop BCIs that would allow paralyzed patients to communicate with the outside world and control external devices. As well as an invasive BCI, the company also sells an implant to restore speech. Neural Signals' Brain Communicator BCI device uses glass cones containing microelectrodes coated with proteins to encourage the electrodes to bind to neurons. Although 16 paying patients were treated using William Dobelle's vision BCI, new implants ceased within a year of Do belles death in 2004. A company controlled by Dobelle, Avery Biomedical Devices, and Stony Brook University is continuing development of the implant, which has not yet received FDA approval for human implantation. Ambient, at a TI developers conference in early 2008, demoed a product they have in development call The Audeo. The Audio is being developed to create a humancomputer interface for communication without the need of physical motor control or speech production. Using signal
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Brain Computer interface processing, unpronounced speech representing the thought of the mind can be translated from intercepted neurological signals. Mind ball is a product developed and commercialized by Interactive Productline in which players compete to control a ball's movement across a table by becoming more relaxed and focused. Interactive Product line is a Swedish company whose objective is to develop and sell easy understandable EEG products that train the ability to relax and focus. There are three main consumer-devices commercial-

competitors in this area .which are going to launch such devices primarily for g aiming- and pc-users.

Cell-culture BCIs
Researchers have built devices to interface with neural cells and entire neural networks in cultures outside animals. have As well on as furthering research on animal implantable devices, experiments on cultured neural tissue focused building problem-solving networks, constructing basic computers and manipulating robotic devices. Research into techniques for stimulating and recording from individual neurons grown on semiconductor chips is sometimes referred to as neuroelectronics or neurochips.

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Brain Computer interface

World first: Neurotic developed by Caltech researchers Jerome Pine and Michael Maher Development of the first working neurotic was claimed by a Caltech team led by Jerome Pine and Michael Maher in 1997.The Caltech chip had room for 16 neurons. In 2003, a team led by Theodore Berger at the University of Southern California started work on a neurochip designed to function as an artificial or prosthetic hippocampus. The neurochip was designed to function in rat brains and is intended as a prototype for the eventual development of higher-brain prosthesis. The hippocampus was chosen because it is thought to be the most ordered and structured part of the brain and is the most studied area. Its function is to encode experiences for storage as long-term memories elsewhere in the brain.

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Brain Computer interface Thomas Demarest at the University of Florida used a culture of 25,000 neurons taken from a rat's brain to fly an F-22 fighter jet aircraft simulator. After collection, the cortical neurons were cultured in a Petri dish and rapidly began to reconnect themselves to form a living neural network. The cells were arranged over a grid of 60 electrodes and used to control the pitch and yaw functions of the simulator. The study's focus was on understanding how the human brain performs and learns computational tasks at a cellular level.

Mental Task Classification for Brain Computer Interface Applications

Mental task classification by recognizing

Electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns is an important and challenging biomedical signal processing problem. Such classification can be utilized to enable a patient to communicate without any overt physical movement. This is done just by the computer processing of the patients brain waves as can be seen in the block diagram of Figure 1. Developments of faster digital computers and better EEG devices have motivated many researchers to work on BCI systems. So far the accuracy of classification has been one of the main pitfalls of the developed BCI systems which directly affect the decisions made as the BCI output. This accuracy is affected by the quality of EEG signal and the
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Brain Computer interface processing algorithms. The processing algorithms include preprocessing, feature extraction and feature classification. In our previous research the effect of different feature extraction algorithms and different number of EEG channels [4] on classification accuracy was investigated. In the current work, the effects of different types of classifiers on the accuracy of classification are investigated and compared. Density models. EEG dataset and the EEG Dataset from Department of Medical Informatics, University of Technology Graz are investigated. Both datasets are known and well established datasets in the BCI field and are accessible from internet. Autoregressive (AR) and adaptive autoregressive coefficients (AAR) were extracted from the EEG windows for all classifiers. These extracted features were inputted to the next stage of BCI, which is the classifier. The same extracted features for all classifiers facilitated the comparison of classifiers efficiencies. The main focus was on investigation The main focus was on investigation and comparison of feed forward neural network, Bayesian quadratic, Bayesian network, Fisher linear classifier and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) in mental task classification. These classifiers are known methods in the machine learning literature. The classifiers are intentionally chosen to cover both linear and nonlinear methods. The Gaussian mixture
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In the present research, the

classification of mental tasks using the Purdue University

Brain Computer interface model is represented as a Bayesian network and this is the first time that such a classifier is used for the EEG signal classification [7]. We trained the Bayesian network and Hidden Markov model using expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. Mixture models are a type of density models. They are comprised of a number of component functions that in our case were Gaussians. These component functions are combined to provide a multimodal density.

Figure1. Flow of the methodology Military applications The United States military has begun to explore possible applications of BCIs beginning in 2008 to enhance troop performance as well as a possible development by adversaries. As one report concluded,

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Brain Computer interface The most successful implementation of invasive interfaces has occurred in medical applications in which nerve signals are used as the mechanism for information transfer. Adversarial actions using this approach to implement enhanced, specialized sensory functions could be possible in limited form now, and with developing capability in the future. Such threat potential would be limited to adversaries with access to advanced medical technology. BCI ANDIT'S APPLICATIONS In the context of BCI, EEG signals are mainly analyzed in time, frequency, and time-frequency domains. Most of the research groups work in the frequency domain and extract the information characterizing mental activities from the nonparametric and parametric spectral representations of EEG. Also joint spectral properties of the EEG components are analyzed do detecting particular emotional serves as states. The relationship an indication of motor between the time Useful courses of the signals coming from different electrodes activities. information can alos be extracted from particular brain configurations that can be interpreted in terms of brain states. Time-frequency and time-scale representations of EEG signals were exploited for finding those neuronal groups
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Brain Computer interface that synchronize their activity as a response to a particular stimulus. From that above considerations it can be stated that mental activities, when mapped onto the timefrequency representation of EEG signals, display a picture that illustrates the cooperative activity consists in analyzing the joint time-frequency-space correlations between the components of an EEG signal. The Brain Communicator is well-suited for patients who are severely paralyzed or locked-in, and who therefore have very limited options in their communications with others, such as ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) patients on a ventilator. Patients must be cognitively intact with no history of epilepsy. There are many applications that are still in

developement but also some of them are quite useful. At Graz University of technology was developed BCI that uses oscillatory EEG signals, recorded during specific mental activity, as input and provides a control option by its output. The obtained output signals are presently evaluated for different purposes, such as cursor control, selection of letters or words, or control of a prosthesis or orthosis. They are already working on Direct Brain Interface that recognizes voluntary activity within the brain and can be used to control assistive technologies without requiring any physical movement. This technology uses the

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Brain Computer interface electrocorticogram (ECoG), recorded from implanted electrodes which are placed directly on the cortex. There Neurotrophic are two choices. One is the patented

Electrode, whereby the electrode tip is

implanted 5mm under the surface of the brain and the outer end is attached to amplifiers and FM transmitters located on the skull, under the scalp. No wires or batteries are used. Power is provided by a power induction system similar to your toothbrush holder that charges the toothbrush overnight. This implantation requires major surgery lasting about 10 hours. The neural signals are transmitted to and processed by a computer to activate a switch or drive a cursor and hence provide communication. The other option is to implant a patented conductive skull screw that does not enter the brain. It records from local field potentials over the surface of the cortex, rather like a very pricise EEG (electroencephalogram). These signals can be used to activate a switch and hence provide communication. Before implantation, the subject undergoes a

functional MRI. This determines if there is brain activity even when there is no movement. The implant target is thus chosen. The system is also used at surgery to guide the surgeon onto target for accurate implantation. The Army is also interested in using BCI to make faster responses possible for figter pilots. The combination of EEG
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Brain Computer interface signals and artifacts combine to create a signal that can be used to fly a virtual plane. One can imagine that the military would have multiple uses for a system that speeds up response times in areas as tactical maneuvering and even targeting and firing weapons. Currently, the main focus of Air Force research is for Alternative Control Technology (ACT). The goal of the ACT program is to enable communication with computers while the computer users hands are busy with other tasks.

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Present and Future

The practical use of BCI technology depends on an interdisciplinary engineers, cooperation between neuroscientists, and computer programmers, psychologists,

Rehabilitation specialists, in order to develop appropriate applications, to identify appropriate users groups, and to pay careful attention to the needs and desires of Individual users. The prospects for controlling computers through

neural signals are indeed Difficult to judge because the field of research is still in its infancy. Much progress has been made in taking advantage of the power of personal computers to perform the operations needed to recognize patterns in biological impulses, but the search for new and more useful signals still continues. If the advances of the 21st century match the strides of the past few decades, direct neural communication between humans and computers may ultimately mature and find widespread use. Perhaps newly purchased computers will one day arrive with biological signal sensors and thought-recognition software built in, just as keyboard and mouse are commonly found on today's units.

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CONCLUSION As we can see there are many useful applications of brain computer interface. It can be very helpful for people with moving disabilities as human - machine interface. But it can be also used for control of human body muscles. There are also many possibilities in military domain. Last are are the applications for making our lives easier. So one day maybe all people are wearing bci-caps and using hands only for eating. Or even without caps but with implants right in CNS.To bring this in reality it has to been d The role of signal processing is crucial in the

development of a real-time Brain Computer Interface. Until recently, several improvements have been made in this area, but none of them has been entirely successful. The goal of creating more effective classification algorithms, have focused numerous investigations in the search of new techniques of feature extraction. A BCI has to be useful for a wide variety of tasks, for instance, when a BCI is used as the main control device for a handicapped individual. In this study, signals from five different tasks were used as the basis for tests. Among the five tasks, multiplication problem solving, geometric figure rotation, mental letter composing, visual counting, and A baseline task where the subject was instructed to think about nothing in particular, two (rotation and letter) had been problematic in a previous
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Brain Computer interface classification method based on autoregressive models. The discovery of a new method founded on Time Frequency Representations was of vital importance not only for these two tasks, but also for future research.

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BIBILOGRAPHY J.R. Wolpaw, D.J. McFarland, G.W. Neat, and C.A. Forneris. "An EEG-based Brain-computer interface for cursor control". Electroenceph. Clan. Neurophysiology. v.78, pp. 252258, 1991. G. Pfurtscheller, J. Kalcher, Ch. Neuper, D. Flotzinger, and M. Pregenzer, "On-line EEG classification during externallypaced hand movements using a neural network basedClassify er", Electroenceph. Cline. Neurophysiol.", v.99, pp. 416425, 1996. J.M. Belsh and P.L. Schiffman (editors), Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: diagnosis and management for the clinician, Future Publishing Co., Inc., Armonk, NY, 1996. [N. Birbaumer, N. Ghanayim, T. Hinterberger, I. Iversen, B. Kotchoubey, A. Kubler, J. Perelmouter, E. Taub, H. Flor. "A Spelling Device for the Paralysed". Nature, v.398, pp. 297 298, 1999. S. Lin, Y. Tsai, and C Liou, "Conscious mental tasks and their EEG signals", Medical and Biol. Engineering and Comput., v.31, pp. 421 425, 1993.
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