Latest Research and Reviews about Brain-Computer Interfaces

If you are looking for the latest research and reviews about BCI/BMI this site can be one of the best options offering you many results being almost of them with public access.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

BCI and Neurotechnology - gTEC solutions

As most readers of this blog knows, gTEC is an Austrian company dedicated for several years to the BCI research. At present it has a very wide catalog of EEG equipment as well as signal processing software. As a user of these company solutions and also in the support that I have always obtained from the technical team I consider gTEC an excellent investment option in BCI research area.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Where is the Consciousness Brain Region?

Elisa Clement published a new article in the AR Magazine from Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon - Portugal. 

Most scholars consider consciousness to have two components: wakefulness and awareness. Wakefulness is fairly easy to define and measure experimentally, through EEG, because the pattern of activity shown by EEG is different in brains of awake subjects, compared to subjects who are asleep.

www.gregadunn.com

Awareness, on the other hand, is neither easy to assess, nor to define – what exactly does it mean to be “aware” of your surroundings? Are there different stages or levels of awareness? Are there any other more accurate and objective ways of assessing awareness other than through questionnaires filled in by subjects, which is how it is often assessed?

But the most crucial and interesting question yet to be answered is the following: is consciousness generated through the orchestrated activation of multiple brain areas, or is there one particular area responsible for it?

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships

An interesting opportunity for research scholarship starting at 2019 is available to post-graduate researchers that are planning to go to Switzerland to do research at doctoral or post-doctoral level. Only candidates nominated by an academic mentor will be considered and must be born after 1982.

Each year the Swiss Confederation awards Government Excellence Scholarships to promote international exchange and research cooperation between Switzerland and over 180 other countries. Recipients are selected by the awarding body, the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS).

The University of Geneva that includes the BCI groups "Electrical Neuroimaging Group" and "Affective Computing and Multimodal Interaction Group" is one of the selected educational institutions.

Additional allowances:

• The scholarship amounts to a monthly payment of CHF 1,920;
• Scholarship holders from outside continental Europe receive a flight allowance (lump sum) for a ticket back to their country of origin (provided at the end of the scholarship);
• Special CHF 300 housing allowance (paid once at the beginning of the scholarship).

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

BCI and EEG Projects in European Commission

It is the European Commission's primary public repository and portal to disseminate information on all EU-funded research projects and their results in the broadest sense. The website and repository include all public information held by the Commission (project factsheets, publishable reports and deliverables), editorial content to support communication and exploitation (news, events, success stories, magazines, multilingual "results in brief" for the broader public) and comprehensive links to external sources such as open access publications and websites.

If you want to know all the European Research Projects about a specified area, as "BCI" or "EEG", you can use the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS). 
For example, to get all the results containning BCI, written in english, from September, 1 - 2017, type in the search field "('BCI') AND language='en' AND contentUpdateDate>=2017-09-01" or just use the "advanced search" option.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Next Generation of Neural Interfaces

The Imperial College of London has a Next Generation Neural Interfaces research group to "create interfaces that will change the way the people interact with surroundings". Another team of researchers that surely contribute in advancing of BCIs area.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

BR41N.IO - The BCI Designers Hackathon

The BR41N.IO hackathon challenges young geeks to design and buid a unique, playful and wearable headpiece which is able to measure useful EEG signals in real-time to create any sort of interaction. With the intended purpose in mind, the teams plan and produce their own fully functional headpiece. 3D printers are on-site, so the teams will be able to give their headpieces an individual design that fits on participants’ head.

The goal of this hackathon is to bring people of different professions together, such as engineers, programmers, physicians, or graphic designers. As an interdisciplinary team, they learn from each other and merge well established hardware and software in order to create a new, innovative and exceptional idea. The participation only requires basic knowledge in Brain-Computer Interfaces, machine learning, programming, signal processing or designing.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

BCI Research Groups

List of 50 BCI Research Groups all over the World

1. Graz BCI Lab - Graz University of Technology, Austria
2. The Brain Interface Project - University of British Columbia, Canada
3. Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering - University of Toronto, Canada
4. Human Machine Interaction group - Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
5. BCI Group - Aalto University, Finland
6. Hybrid - Inria Rennes, France
7. Berlin BCI Group - Technical University of Berlin, Germany
8. Brain-Machine Interface Research - University of Freiburg, Germany
9. Brain State Decoding Lab - University of Freiburg, Germany
10. Würzburg BCI Research Group - University of Würzburg, Germany
11. Biomedical Engineering research group - University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland
12. Brain Machine Interface Lab - Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy
13. Laboratory for Advanced Brain Signal Processing - Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan
14. BCI Lab Group - University of Tsukuba, Japan
15. Touyama's BCI laboratory - Toyama Prefecture University, Japan
16. BCI Group - University of Engineering & Technology, Pakistan
17. Laboratory for Neuroergonomics and BCI - NCR Kurchatov Institute, Russia
18. I2R BCI Laboratory - Institute for Infocomm ResearchBCI, Singapore
19. Sinapse - National University of Singapore, Singapore
20. BCI Lab @ Unist - Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
21. Brain Signal Processing Laboratory - Korea University, South Korea
22. BCI Group - Korea University, South Korea
23. BDigital eHealth R&D - Barcelona Digital Centre Technològic, Spain
24. BitBrain R&D - BitBrain Technologies, Spain
25. Brain-Machine Interface Systems Lab - Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, Spain
26. BCI Lab UGR - University of Granada, Spain
27. UMABCI Lab - University of Málaga, Spain
28. BCI research team - University of Zaragoza, Spain
29. Non-Invasive Brain-Machine Interface Group - École Polytechnique de Lausanne, Switzerland
30. BCIs Group - University of Essex, UK
31. BCI Project - University of Oxford, UK
32. Brain Cognition Computing Lab - University of Kent, UK
33. Signal Processing and Control Group - University of Southampton, UK
34. BCI and Assistive Technology - University of Ulster, UK
35. BCI Laboratory - Colorado State University, USA
36. ETSU BCI Laboratory - East Tennessee State University, USA
37. Brain UI Group - Georgia Tech & Georgia State University, USA
38. The BrainLab - Kennesaw State University, USA
39. BCIs - Microsoft, USA
40. The BCI project - Neil Squire Society, USA
41. BCI Lab - Purdue University, USA
42. Human-Computer Interaction Lab - Tufts University, USA
43. De Sa BCI Lab - University of California, USA
44. Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience - University of California San Diego, USA
45. Direct Brain Interface Laboratory - University of Michigan, USA
46. Center for Neuro-Engineerig & Cognitive Science - University of Houston, USA
47. Schalk Lab - Wadsworth Center, USA
48. Wadsworth BCI Lab - Wadsworth Center, USA
49. NeuroEngineering & BioMedical Instrumentation Lab - John Hopkins University, USA
50. Aspen Lab - Old Dominion University, USA

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

BCI for Basic Research

NEURABLE - Looking for inspired minds to work with BCIs

Neurable wants to create a world where people live without limitations by enabling 3-D control of software and devices through brain activity in real-time enabling people to play games, operate toys and drive a full-sized car using their brain activity.

They are also looking for a Machine Learning Scientist/Researcher with a salary of $100.000/year.

If you are looking to create new possibilities and unlocks the true potential of existing non-invasive BCIs press here. 

Job in EEG, Scientific Consultant - Brain Vision

Brain Vision is looking for candidates with a deep understanding of EEG research.

Brain Vision, LLC is looking for scientists to join our team. We seek candidates with excellent communication skills: fluent written and spoken scientific English (proficiency in other languages will be seen as a plus, but is not a requirement). An academic degree (PhD is preferred, but we will also consider an Academic Diploma and Masters) in neuroscience, psychology, psychophysiology, or a related field is required.

The candidates should have expertise in conducting, analyzing, and publishing EEG experiments or similar complex neurophysiological analyses (the ideal candidate is a current user of our hardware and software solutions). Experience in writing and managing grants is also a plus.

More information here.

NeuroMore - New Research Brain Tool

Neuromore is a new research brain tool to capture and analyze bio signals in real-time. Its possible to visualize brain waves activity, export data captured or control some devices around using multiple simultaneous biosensors. Three different components can be used: Engine, Studio and Cloud as described below.

Neuromore Engine

• Fully customizable signal processing pipeline
• Graph-based model for an intuitive data flow paradigm
• Easy-to-use high-level algorithms for data analysis
• Sample level synchronization for input devices
• Usable for real-time, post processing and concurrent analysis applications
• (...)

Neuromore Studio

• Interactive classification graph designing tools
• Fully customizable user interfaces
• Intuitive tools and workflows and highly optimized user interface
• Data visualization and real-time signal analysis
• Signals over time, power spectrum (bars, lines) and 3D
• (...)

Neuromore Cloud

• Highly secured and scalable storage solution for biodata
• Customer relationship management
• Powerful activity monitoring tools
• Convenient and full featured front-end
• REST API

This free application can be used by diferent EEG devices:

After 25 minutes of downloading and installing it in my windows system I've tried to run the application and ... surprise: It crashed!!! Then I changed the firewall settings, antivirus, the installation folder permissions, etc but the problem remained. After sending 3 error reports  to Neuromore I hope to have soon the resolution to this problem!

More posts about brain tools or BCI press here.

NeuroMore - New Research Brain Tool

Neuromore is a new research brain tool to capture and analyze bio signals in real-time. Its possible to visualize brain waves activity, export data captured or control some devices around using multiple simultaneous biosensors. Three different components can be used: Engine, Studio and Cloud as described below.

Neuromore Engine

• Fully customizable signal processing pipeline
• Graph-based model for an intuitive data flow paradigm
• Easy-to-use high-level algorithms for data analysis
• Sample level synchronization for input devices
• Usable for real-time, post processing and concurrent analysis applications
• (...)

Neuromore Studio

• Interactive classification graph designing tools
• Fully customizable user interfaces
• Intuitive tools and workflows and highly optimized user interface
• Data visualization and real-time signal analysis
• Signals over time, power spectrum (bars, lines) and 3D
• (...)

Neuromore Cloud

• Highly secured and scalable storage solution for biodata
• Customer relationship management
• Powerful activity monitoring tools
• Convenient and full featured front-end
• REST API

This free application can be used by diferent EEG devices:

After 25 minutes of downloading and installing it in my windows system I've tried to run the application and ... surprise: It crashed!!! Then I changed the firewall settings, antivirus, the installation folder permissions, etc but the problem remained. After sending 3 error reports  to Neuromore I hope to have soon the resolution to this problem!

For more informations about BCI/EEG press here.

The Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme

The Champalimaud Neuroscience community is a research group from over 20 different countries to try to understand how the brain works. The "Ar" group using interactive projects wants to show to the people why science is important. 

Society, Adventures in illegal art, Mind Invaders, Think of a Numb3r, Food for Thought, Human 2.0, Creativity and Suspicious Coincidences in the Brain - are some of their very active scientific events.

The Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown is located in Portugal near Belém.

Human Brain Project

The human brain has extraordinary functions and it is the most powerful computer imaginable. The Human Brain Project wants to start building a computer model of the brain and simulate its functions. It consists of a large international number of neuroscientists, physicists and other groups from the scientific community that aims to recreate the human brain inside a supercomputer with a budget of 1 Billion Euro.

As modern computers exploit ever-higher numbers of parallel computing elements, they face a power wall: power consumption rises with the number of processors, potentially to unsustainable levels. By contrast, the brain manages billions of processing units connected via kilometers of fibres and trillions of synapses, while consuming no more power than a light bulb. Understanding how it does this can provide the key not only to a completely new category of hardware but to a paradigm shift for computing as a whole, moving away from current models of “bit precise” computing towards new techniques that exploit the stochastic behavior of simple, very fast, low-power computing devices embedded in intensely recursive architectures. 

In short, the goal of the Human Brain Project is to build an infrastructure for future neuroscience, future medicine and future computing that will catalyze a global collaborative effort to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities. The economic and industrial impact is potentially enormous.

BCI European Projects

Here are probably the 6 bigger BCI EU projects for systems that include spelling devices, computer games, functional electrical stimulation and navigation in virtual environments.

TOBI (2008-2012)

TOBI will design non-invasive BCI prototypes that will be combined with existing assistive technologies and rehabilitation protocols. In such a hybrid approach users can couple brain interaction with muscle-based interaction or can naturally switch between the different ways of interacting. Non-invasive BCI are based on electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. The EEG is recorded through electrodes placed on the user's head. This technology is not invasive and only records the electrical activity of the brain without interfering with it. TOBI is expected to have an impact by broadening the appropriate use of BCI assistive technology, by incorporating adaptive capabilities that augment those other assistive technologies they are combined with.

DECODER (2010-2012)

DECODER is a European collaborative project that will deploy Brain-Computer-Interfaces (BCI) for the detection of consciousness in non-responsive patients. The DECODER team develops an assessment battery that sup­ports an exact diagnosis of the state of consciousness by a variety of auditory, visual, tactile and mental stimulation paradigms. Through the deployment of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) for non-responsive patients DECODER will provide access to modern information and communication technology such as internet, personal computer or home appliances when only a single response of a person is available.

BETTER (2010-2012)

The principal goal of BETTER is to improve physical rehabilitation therapies of gait disorders in stroke patients based on BNCI assistive technologies, producing improved systems, providing guidelines for improving future systems, and developing benchmarking and evaluation tools. The project will validate, technically, functionally and clinically, the concept of improving stroke rehabilitation with wearable exoskeletons and robotic gait trainers based on a TOP-DOWN approach: The robot exerts physical stimulation -at the periphery- as a function of targeted neural activation patterns (related to user involvement). This intervention is expected to result in reorganizations in the cortex. Such Top-Down therapeutic treatment would aim to encourage plasticity of the affected brain structures to improve motor function.

BrainAble (2010-2012)

The BrainAble project is about empowering them and pursues to mitigate the limitations of the everyday life to which they are confronted to. Our initiative is to research, design, implement and validate an ICT-based HCI (Human Computer Interface) composed of BNCI (Brain Neural Computer Interface) sensors combined with affective computing and virtual environments. Motor disabilities of people from any origin have a dramatic effect on their quality of life. Some examples of neurologic nature include a person suffering from a severe brain injury resulting from a car collision or individuals who have suffered a brain stroke. For years, the severely disabled have learned to cope with their restricted autonomy, impacting on their daily activities like moving around or turning on the lights and ability for social interaction.

ABC (2011-2014)

ABC aims at increasing human capabilities by means of Brain/Neural Computer Interfaces (BNCI). The project will develop applications addressed primarily to persons with Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy (DCP). Due to DCP particular conditions, BNCI-based systems present a huge potential for the improvement of the quality life and the promotion the independent living of this target group. In particular, project outcomes will specifically focus the augmentation of capabilities related to communication, learning, social participation and control of devices. ABC system will be composed by four independent modules based on the latest advancements in BNCI signal processing, Affective Computing, Augmented Communication and Biosignal Monitoring. The reference European Research Institutions in each field will lead the R&D work.

BackHome (2012-2015)

BACKHOME will conceive, research, design, implement and validate person-centred solutions to end users with functional diversity. Knowing the person’s needs will be a core part of the pro­ject focus. Social research techniques will be conducted in order to provide a continuous flow of user-based knowled­ge that will be crucial to ensure the alignment between the project outputs and the requirements of people.

BackHome will provide Assistive Technology (AT) so­lutions to research and develop systems for assisting people with severe disabilities. The AT embedded within BackHome will include BNCIs, environmental control systems and a range of other te­chnologies which are usually classified as ambient inte­lligence and which can provide a considerable support to make BNCI solutions really work in environments with a lack of human support.

BCI Research Labs Map

Ver Research Places num mapa maior

EPOC EEG System

EMOTIV has developed a new wireless BCI with 14 sensors and a lithium battery with 12 hours of autonomy. It comes with Emokey that converts detected events into a combination of keystrokes running behind existing applications or games.

There's no need for keystroke combinations, simply smile or focus on a command and your applications respond. For example, combining Emotiv EPOC with a smartphone offers unique opportunities to capture brain imaging data reflecting our everyday social behavior in a mobile context, allowing for modeling the mental state of users as well as providing a basis for novel bio-feedback applications.

The EPOC SDKs have 4 different editions (developer, research, enterprise and education) and the price goes from $500 to $2500. "Mind reading images and reconstructing the neural sources", "An experimentation and mind-reading application for the Emotiv EPOC" and "P-300 Rhythm Detection Using ANFIS Algorithm and Wavelet Feature Extraction in EEG Signals" are some of the published papers related to Emotiv.


This system has different applications that can be used to read EEG:

• Emotiv EPOC Brain Activity Map displays a real-time map of your mental activity with adjustable gain that allows to see detailed information and relative strengths between different brain regions. The price is $9.95 and is compatible with the Emotiv EPOC headset and SDK developer and research headsets.

• Emotiv EPOC 3D Brain Activity Map has custom band definition, record and play back sessions, 3D surface models for each band and EEG and FFT views. 

This application costs $79.95 but is only available to Research, Education and Enterprise licenses.

BCI Europe Research Links

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - Multimedia Signal Processing Group, Graz University of Technolog - Institute for Knowledge Discovery and Technical University of Denmark - Dep. of Informatics and  Mathematical Modelling are some of the most important institutes in Europe that makes BCI research.


École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - MultiMedia Signal Processing Group  

The Multimedia Signal Processing Group is headed by Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. The group is active in research and teaching in the field of multimedia signal processing. Research topics span over three highly interconnected disciplines of multimedia signal processing, namely multimedia coding, multimodal processing, analysis and interpretation, and media security.

• Research Activities
• Participation to Scientific Networks
• PhD in Progress

Graz University of Technology - Institute for Knowledge Discovery   

The BCI Lab is one of the leading labs in brain-computer communication. It is an internationally renowned research institution with a research focus on brain-computer communication and dynamics of brain oscillations. More specifically, the lab has extensive expertise in EEG recording, offline and online processing of brain signals and biosignals in general, feature extraction, detection and classification of brain patterns, and neurofeedback systems.

• Research
• Publications
• Downloads

Technical University of Denmark - Dep. of Informatics and  Mathematical Modelling  

milab is a laboratory at the Cognitive Systems Section at DTU Informatics offering an environment for research and teaching in the areas of mobile context awareness, media modeling, and user experiences. Advanced mobile phones and internet tablets are available for application prototype development and experiments, along with a set of useful tools.

• Research
• Demos 
• Tools