General Purpose Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) System

描述(由申请人提供)： 来自大脑的信号可以为肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)、脑干中风、脑瘫或脊髓损伤患者提供非肌肉沟通和控制通道，或脑-计算机接口(BCI)。BCI可以让那些严重瘫痪，甚至被“锁住”的人使用大脑信号来写作、与他人交流、控制他们的环境、访问互联网或操作神经假体。实现临床上有用的BCI系统需要在三个方面进行工作：(1)脑信号的获取；(2)信号处理；(3)临床实施。由于这些领域涉及非常不同的学科，研究小组通常只专注于一个领域。因此，在本战略规划开始时，尽管世界各地的研究人员取得了令人振奋的成就，但这一领域只取得了实验室示范的程度，这在很大程度上是因为一个领域的成就没有与其他领域的成就相结合。在过去的赠款期间，这一BRP改变了这一局面。首先，它开发并向160多个研究小组传播了一个名为BCI2000的通用脑-机接口软件平台，该平台促进了从实验室到家庭的跨学科脑-机接口研究和开发的所有方面。此外，它还使用BCI2000开发了第一个为独立家庭使用而设计的脑机接口系统，并成功地将该原型在一小群因肌萎缩侧索硬化症严重残疾的人的长期家庭使用中进行了测试。在这项工作的基础上，这项更新提案的目标是建立第一个垂直整合的BCI研发计划，并利用它来生产完全实用的BCI系统，用于临床和家庭环境中的独立使用。拟议的方案从信号采集到信号处理，再到应用开发和临床实施。通过纳入和协调这些不同领域的活动和成就，该计划将创建和验证第一个适用于严重运动障碍患者广泛独立使用的脑机接口系统。每个BRP合作伙伴都处于一个或多个基本研究领域的前沿，从硬件设计到临床测试。在有限的方式下，他们已经相互合作了。他们将密切合作并实施新的想法，将：(1)通过开发更可靠、更健壮和更方便的慢性脑电方法来记录脑电活动(EEG)和探索皮层脑电(ECoG)的脑机接口功能，从而改进信号采集；(2)优化这些信号的自适应特征提取和转换算法；以及(3)将结果整合到完全适用于家庭和临床环境的脑机接口系统，并确定这些系统对严重运动障碍患者的日常使用价值。通过实现这些目标，传播由此产生的技术，并为其他研究人员提供访问其垂直集成框架的机会，该BRP计划应使BCI研究能够产生实际改善严重运动障碍患者生活的BCI。与公共卫生相关的脑机接口(BCI)可以恢复因肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)、脑干中风、脑瘫或其他破坏性神经肌肉疾病而严重瘫痪甚至“闭锁”的人的通信和控制。这项生物工程研究伙伴计划的目标是建立第一个全面的脑机接口研究和开发计划，并利用它生产出第一个适合严重运动障碍患者广泛独立家庭使用的脑机接口系统。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Signals from the brain can provide non-muscular communication and control channels, or brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), to people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brainstem stroke, cerebral palsy, or spinal cord injury. BCIs can allow people who are severely paralyzed, or even "locked in," to use brain signals to write, communicate with others, control their environments, access the Internet, or operate neuroprostheses. The realization of clinically useful BCI systems requires work in three areas: (1) acquisition of brain signals; (2) signal processing; and (3) clinical implementation. Because these areas involve very different disciplines, research groups usually focus on only one area. Thus, at the beginning of this BRP, despite the exciting achievements of researchers around the world, the field had progressed only to the point of laboratory demonstrations, in large part because achievements in one area were not integrated with those in others. In the past grant period, this BRP changed that landscape. First, it developed and disseminated to more than 160 research groups a general-purpose BCI software platform, called BCI2000, that facilitates all aspects of interdisciplinary BCI research and development, from laboratory to home. Furthermore, it used BCI2000 to develop the first BCI system designed for independent home use, and successfully tested this prototype in long-term home use by a small group of people severely disabled by ALS. Building on this work, the goal of this renewal proposal is to establish the first vertically-integrated BCI research and development program, and use it to produce BCI systems that are fully practical for independent use in clinical and home settings. The proposed program extends from signal acquisition, to signal processing, to application development and clinical implementation. By including and coordinating the activities and achievements in these different areas, this program will create and validate the first BCI systems suitable for widespread independent use by people with severe motor disabilities. Each BRP partner is in the forefront of one or more of the essential research areas, from hardware design to clinical testing. In limited ways, they already collaborate with one another. Working closely together and implementing new ideas, they will: (1) improve signal acquisition by developing more reliable, robust, and convenient chronic methods for recording electroencephalographic activity (EEG) and for exploring the BCI capabilities of electrocorticography (ECoG); (2) optimize adaptive feature extraction and translation algorithms for these signals; and (3) incorporate the results into BCI systems that are fully practical for home and clinical settings and establish the value of these systems for daily use by people with severe motor disabilities. By achieving these aims, disseminating the resulting technology, and providing other researchers access to its vertically-integrated framework, this BRP program should enable BCI research to produce BCIs that actually improve the lives of people with severe motor disabilities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can restore communication and control to people severely paralyzed or even "locked-in" by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brainstem stroke, cerebral palsy, or other devastating neuromuscular disorders. The goal of this Bioengineering Research Partnership proposal is to establish the first comprehensive BCI research and development program and use it to produce the first BCI systems suitable for widespread independent home use by people with severe motor disabilities.