Help me communicate: Towards an online Brain-Computer Interface based on tactile stimulation

Maio, Gerardo

Help me communicate: Towards an online Brain-Computer Interface based on tactile stimulation

Files

Maio, G.,4117174-2021.pdf (2.49 MB)

Authors

Maio, Gerardo

Issue Date

2021-04-24

Language

en

URI

https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/16101

Abstract

The present study experimentally investigated how and if the noise-tagging technique can be used to create a tactile Brain-Computer Interface that works faster and more reliable than other modern tactile BCI's. BCI's based on visual or auditory stimulations work well for healthy subjects but are not practical for locked-in patients, i.e. ALS patients in the last phases of the disease. Therefore, a tactile BCI might help these patients to communicate and improve their psychological well-being. The first part of this study acts as a proof of concept for using the noise-tagging technique for tactile Brain-Computer Interfaces. Two subjects were used to identify neural correlates of two different noise-tagging stimuli. In the second part of this study, an offline, tactile BCI was tested. Eight participants were presented with both noise-tagging stimuli simultaneously on two different fingers and had to focus their attention on only one of them. A template-matching classifier was used to identify which stimulation had the subjects attention. After improving the stimulation devices, the last experiment was repeated with ten participants. While it was possible to detect neural correlates of noise-tagging stimuli, a classifier was not able to differentiate between simultaneously presented noise-tagging stimuli. Therefore, it can be concluded that a tactile BCI using the noise-tagging technique should be possible, but that the attention modulation as it is used in this experiment is not sufficient to separate two simultaneously presented tactile stimuli. Improvements might be possible by modifying the stimuli or the offline analysis of brain responses. Keywords: brain-computer interface, noise-tag, tactile bci