BCI2000: SOFTWARE FOR BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE RESEARCH

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Signals from the brain can provide a new communication channel - a brain-computer interface (BCI) - for people with severe neuromuscular disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brainstem stroke, cerebral palsy, and spinal cord injury. BCI technology can allow people who are completely paralyzed, or "locked in," to express wishes to caregivers, use word processing programs, access the Internet, or even operate neuroprostheses. Up to now, BCI research has demonstrated that a variety of different methods using different brain signals, different signal analyses, and different operating formats can convey a person's commands to a computer. Future progress that moves from this demonstration stage to practical applications of long-term value to people with motor disabilities requires systematic comparison and integration of these different methods. This process can be greatly facilitated by a flexible general-purpose BCI system that can be used to implement any BCI design. Over the past five years, we have developed such a system, called BCI2000, and we have provided it to 63 laboratories around the world. They are using it for a wide variety of studies. The goal of this application is the further development and maintenance of BCI2000 to ensure its continuing and growing utility to the rapidly growing field of BCI research. Our laboratory has been in the forefront of BCI research for over 15 years. We initiated and are leading the interdisciplinary and multinational development of BCI2000. The aims of this proposal are: (1) to make BCI2000 more adaptable to other users' needs and other technologies to ensure its continuing utility as those needs and technologies change; (2) to exploit this increased flexibility by incorporating into BCI2000 support for other hardware, software, and operating systems; and (3) to develop and maintain complete BCI2000 documentation and user support to allow efficient use of BCI2000 by a larger user base. We expect that achievement of these aims and dissemination of the resulting technology to other research groups will greatly facilitate BCI research and accelerate its ongoing transition from laboratory demonstrations to realization of BCI applications with clear practical value for people with motor disabilities. LAY LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION: Many recent studies have shown that people who are severely paralyzed can use brain signals alone to communicate their intent to a computer. The brain-computer interface (BCI) technology that makes this possible requires further development before it can be widely used. This project will greatly facilitate this development by improving and maintaining general-purpose BCI software and continuing to provide it to BCI research groups throughout the world.