BCI Integration: Application Interfaces

Abstract

Many disorders, like spinal cord injury, stroke or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), can impair or even completely disable the usual communication channels a person needs to communicate and interact with his or her environment. In such severe cases, a brain-computer interface (BCI) might be the only remaining way to communicate [1]. In a BCI, the brain’s electrical activity during predefined mental tasks is analyzed and translated into corresponding actions intend‐ ed by the user. But even for less severe disabilities, a BCI can improve quality of life by allow‐ ing users to control a computer or specially prepared electronic devices, or to stay in contact with friends through social networks and games. P300 evoked potential [2, 3, 4] based BCIs can provide goal-oriented control as needed to operating spelling devices [5] or control computer games [6]. For navigating in space e.g. moving a computer mouse [7]), controlling the motion and move‐ ment of a robot or a wheelchair, steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) [8, 9, 10, 10] and motor imagination [12, 13] based BCI paradigms can be used.