Analogue Evolutionary Brain Computer Interfaces

键盘是一块带有许多开关的塑料，它为我们提供了一种可靠但非常不自然的输入形式。鼠标稍微不那么原始了。尽管如此，它只是一个肌肉骨骼运动的机电传感器。这两个接口已经存在多年，目前仍然是我们拥有的最好的计算机接口，但它们对于患有严重肌肉骨骼疾病的人来说是不可用的，而且它们本身就是与工作相关的上肢和背部疾病的已知原因--这两个问题对英国的劳动力来说都是非常普遍的问题。有一天能够处理它们，并用能够直接解释计算机用户的愿望和意图的脑机接口(BCI)来取而代之，难道不是很好吗？这项大胆的提议旨在计算机科学、生物医学工程、神经科学和心理学旨在通过应用程序最近开发的一种新的强大的BCI方法来精确开发这些设备。BCI多年来一直是研究人员的梦想，但开发一直很慢，除了极少数例外，BCI实际上仍然是一个只能在实验室使用的新奇事物。那么，这个项目有什么不同呢？在最近的研究中，我们能够开发出一种能够完全进行二维运动控制的BCI鼠标原型(这在BCI世界中是罕见的)，它可以在几分钟内被任何人使用，而不需要任何事先的培训。这要归功于我们对BCI采取了一种完全创新的方法。以前的脑机接口设计是基于这样的范式：观察脑电信号，寻找特定的特征或波形，对它们进行操作，然后就是否存在这些特征或波形做出是或否的决定。与这种设计智慧相反，我们完全放弃了决策步骤，允许脑电波通过简单的模拟转换直接控制计算机。此外，我们只设计了系统的一部分，将为每个特定用户完成和定制设计的工作留给了进化算法。这要归功于计算机内部达尔文进化的人工形式，它执行选择最佳脑电通道、波和模拟操作的困难任务。使用这两个相同的成分(模拟方法和进化设计)，并从我们成功的实验BCI小鼠开始，该项目专门致力于开发足够健壮、灵活和廉价的脑机接口，这些接口足以离开实验室并开始在现实世界中产生严重影响。为了最大化性能，初步工作将确定最优的视觉呈现条件，将认知负荷、感知错误和目标干扰降至最低。

The keyboard is a piece of plastic with lots of switches, which provides us with a reliable, but very unnatural form of input. The mouse is slightly less primitive. Still, it is only an electro-mechanical transducer of musculoskeletal movement. Both have been with us for many years and are still the best computer interfaces we have at the moment, yet they are unusable for people with severe musculoskeletal disorders and are themselves known causes of work-related upper-limb and back disorders: both hugely widespread problems for the UK's workforce.Wouldn't it be nice some day to be able to dispose of them and replace them with Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) capable of directly interpreting the desires and intentions of computer users?This adventurous proposal aims to carry out an innovative and ambitious interdisciplinary research programme at the edge of Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience and Psychology aimed at developing precisely these devices with a novel powerful BCI approach recently developed by the applicants.BCI has been a dream of researchers for many years, but developments have been slow and, with rare exceptions, BCI is still effectively a curiosity that can be used only in the lab. So, what's different about this project?In very recent research, we were able to develop a prototype BCI mouse capable of full 2-D motion control (a rarity in the BCI world), which uniquely can be used by any person without any prior training within minutes. This was possible thanks to our taking a completely innovative approach to BCI. Previous BCI designs were based on the paradigm of observing EEG signals looking for specific features or waves, manipulating them and then making a yes-or-no decision as to whether such features or waves were present. Contrary to this design wisdom, we completely dispose of the decision step and allow brain waves to directly control the computer via simple analogue transformations. Furthermore, we only partially design the system, leaving the completion and customisation of the design for each specific user to an evolutionary algorithm. This, thanks to an artificial form of Darwinian evolution inside the computer, performs the difficult tasks of selecting the best EEG channels, waves and analogue manipulations. Using these same two ingredients (analogue approach and evolutionary design) and starting from our successful experimental BCI mouse, this project specifically aims at developing brain-computer interfaces which are sufficiently robust, flexible and cheap to leave the lab and that can start making a serious impact in the real world.To maximise performance, preliminary work will determine the optimal visual presentation conditions that minimise cognitive load, perceptual errors and target-distractors interference.