BCI : An interface designed to control a technical device by translating brain activity into commands without a direct dependency on or use of any muscular activity.

  • A new interface for HCI (Human computer interaction)

Modes of interaction in BCI Active & Reactive BCI : Direct Control example :Using P300 to control keyboard Passive BCI : Implicit Control

user modeling with BCI

Neuroadaptivity :

Generating a BCI

  • User trained BCI

    • The o/p of the the machine defines the i/p to the BCI. It expects a specific command to be sent for executing the related action.
    • The user needs to train how to generate the pre defined brain activity at the sensor. Once user learned to control their brain activity precisely a stable communication through the BCI is possible.
  • ML based BCI

    • Diff i/p commands are generated by the user and the BCI learns to detect the difference between them.

Measuring brain activity Some approaches include fMRI, fNIRS, MEG, EEG MEG : not used much, needed to be cooled Classic neuroscience for interpreting brain activity : Isolating process, avg over population as brains are highly variable among a population.

With BCIs there is no isolation, no averages so there is more noise. The goal is more to predict than explain as in classic neuroscience.

Applications of BCI

  • Passive BCIs
    • Mental State Assessment :
      • Workload monitoring at the office
  • Closed loop : system adapts
  • Open loop : User gets a feedback but system does not adapt.

Motor Imagery Control (Active BCI)

  • C3, C4 used from EEG
  • Classification done with LDA