A feedback training system using cognitive brain-computer interface

Electroencephalography (EEG) has become a popular tool in brain-computer interface (BCI) research. Some of the drawbacks pertain to the offline analyses of the neural signal that prevent the subjects from engaging in real-time error correction during learning. Other limitations include the complex nature of the visual stimuli, often inducing fatigue and introducing considerable delays, possibly interfering with spontaneous performance. By replacing the complex external visual input with internally driven motor imagery we can overcome some delay problems, at the expense of losing the ability to precisely parameterize features of the input stimulus. To address these issues we here introduce a direction-imagery task to BCI. We observed that all participants showed almost perfect performance in the fourth session. Participants reported that as they mastered the mental control with direct thinking of direction. These observations provide corroborative evidence for practicability of prefrontal signals to be used as promising cognitive BCI commands.