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1.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38083059

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) employ various paradigms which afford intuitive, augmented control for users to navigate digital technologies. In this study we explore the application of these BCI concepts to predictive text systems: commonplace interactive and assistive tools with variable usage contexts and user behaviors. We conducted an experiment to analyze user neurophysiological responses under these different usage scenarios and evaluate the feasibility of a closed-loop, adaptive BCI for use with such technologies. We recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking (ET) data from participants while they completed a self-paced typing task in a simulated predictive text environment. Participants completed the task with different degrees of reliance on the predictive text system (completely dependent, completely independent, or their choice) and encountered both correct and incorrect text generations. Data suggest that erroneous text generations may evoke neurophysiological responses that can be measured with both EEG and pupillometry. Moreover, these responses appear to change according to users' reliance on the predictive text system. Results show promise for use in a passive, hybrid, BCI with a closed-loop, adaptive framework, and support a neurophysiological approach to the challenge of real-time human feedback on system performance.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Humans , Eye-Tracking Technology , Electroencephalography/methods
2.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl ; 62(36): e202308210, 2023 Sep 04.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37452485

A series of covalent organic cages built from fluorophores capable of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) were elegantly prepared through the reduction of preorganized M2 (LA )3 (LB )2 -type metallacages, simultaneously taking advantage of the synthetic accessibility and well-defined shapes and sizes of metallacages, the good chemical stability of the covalent cages as well as the bright emission of AIE fluorophores. Moreover, the covalent cages could be further post-synthetically modified into an amide-functionalized cage with a higher quantum yield. Furthermore, these presented covalent cages proved to be good energy donors and were used to construct light-harvesting systems employing Nile Red as an energy acceptor. These light-harvesting systems displayed efficient energy transfer and relatively high antenna effect, which enabled their use as efficient photocatalysts for a dehalogenation reaction. This research provides a new avenue for the development of luminescent covalent cages for light-harvesting and photocatalysis.

3.
Chem Soc Rev ; 52(3): 1129-1154, 2023 Feb 06.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36722920

Two-dimensional metallacycles and three-dimensional metallacages constructed by coordination-driven self-assembly have attracted much attention because they exhibit unique structures and properties and are highly efficient to synthesize. Introduction of switching into supramolecular chemistry systems is a popular strategy, as switching can endow systems with reversible features that are triggered by different stimuli. Through this strategy, novel switchable metallacycles and metallacages were generated, which can be reversibly switched into different stable states with distinct characteristics by external stimuli. Switchable metallacycles and metallacages exhibit versatile structures and reversible properties and are inherently dynamic and respond to artificial signals; thus, these structures have many promising applications in a wide range of fields, such as drug delivery, data processing, pollutant removal, switchable catalysis, smart functional materials, etc. This review focuses on the design of switchable metallacycles and metallacages, their switching behaviours and mechanisms triggered by external stimuli, and the corresponding structural changes and resultant properties and functions.

4.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl ; 60(17): 9507-9515, 2021 Apr 19.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33560559

The construction of circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) switches with multiple switchable emission states and high dissymmetry factors (glum ) has attracted increasing attention due to their broad applications in diverse fields such as the development of smart devices and sensors. Herein, a new family of AIE-active chiral [3]rotaxanes were designed and synthesized, from which a novel CPL switching system was successfully constructed. The switching process was realized through the controlled motions of the chiral pillar[5]arene macrocycles along the axle through the addition or removal of the acetate anions, which not only modulated the chirality information transfer but also tuned the aggregations of the integrated [3]rotaxanes, thus resulting in reversible transformations between two emission states with both high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) and high dissymmetry factors (glum ) values.

5.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng ; 67(4): 1105-1113, 2020 04.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31329104

OBJECTIVE: This paper proposes a novel device-to-device transfer-learning algorithm for reducing the calibration cost in a steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) speller by leveraging electroencephalographic (EEG) data previously acquired by different EEG systems. METHODS: The transferring is done by projecting the scalp-channel EEG signals onto a shared latent domain across devices. Three spatial filtering techniques, including channel averaging, canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and task-related component analysis (TRCA), were employed to extract the shared responses from different devices. The transferred data were integrated into a template-matching-based algorithm to detect SSVEPs. To evaluate its transferability, this paper conducted two sessions of simulated online BCI experiments with ten subjects using 40 visual stimuli modulated by joint frequency-phase coding method. In each session, two different EEG devices were used: first, the Quick-30 system (Cognionics, Inc.) with dry electrodes, and second, the ActiveTwo system (BioSemi, Inc.) with wet electrodes. RESULTS: The proposed method with CCA- and TRCA-based spatial filters achieved significantly higher classification accuracy compared with the calibration-free standard CCA-based method. CONCLUSION: This paper validated the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method in implementing calibration-free SSVEP-based BCIs. SIGNIFICANCE: The proposed method has great potentials to enhance practicability and usability of real-world SSVEP-based BCI applications by leveraging user-specific data recorded in previous sessions even with different EEG systems and montages.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Evoked Potentials, Visual , Algorithms , Calibration , Electroencephalography , Humans , Photic Stimulation
6.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc ; 2018: 89-92, 2018 Jul.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30440348

Recent studies have shown that using the user's average steady-state visual evoked responses (SSVEPs) as the template to template-matching methods could significantly improve the accuracy and speed of the SSVEP-based brain- computer interface (BCI). However, collecting the pilot data for each individual can be time-consuming. To resolve this practical issue, this study aims to explore the feasibility of leveraging pre- recorded datasets from the same users by transferring common electroencephalogram (EEG) responses across different sessions with the same or different electrode montages. The proposed method employs spatial filtering techniques including response averaging, canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and task- related component analysis (TRCA) to project scalp EEG recordings onto a shared response domain. The transferability was evaluated by using 40-class SSVEPs recorded from eight subjects with nine electrodes on two different days. Three subsets of electrode montages were selected to simulate different scenarios such as identical, partly overlapped, and non-overlapped electrode placements across two sessions. The target identification accuracy of the proposed methods with transferred training data significantly outperformed a conventional training-free algorithm. The result suggests training data required in the BCI speller could be transferred from different EEG montages and/or headsets.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography , Evoked Potentials, Visual , Language , Algorithms , Brain/physiology , Calibration , Electrodes , Electroencephalography/methods , Humans , Photic Stimulation
7.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc ; 2018: 1972-1975, 2018 Jul.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30440785

Our previous study has demonstrated the feasibility of employing non-hair-bearing electrodes to build a Steadystate Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP)-based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system, relaxing technical barriers in preparation time and offering an ease-of-use apparatus. The signal quality of the SSVEPs and the resultant performance of the non-hair BCI, however, did not close upon those reported in the state-of-the-art BCI studies based on the electroencephalogram (EEG) measured from the occipital regions. Recently, advanced decoding algorithms such as task-related component analysis have made a breakthrough in enhancing the signal quality of the occipital SSVEPs and the performance of SSVEP-based BCIs in a well-controlled laboratory environment. However, it remains unclear if the advanced decoding algorithms can extract highfidelity SSVEPs from the non-hair EEG and enhance the practicality of non-hair BCIs in real-world environments. This study aims to quantitatively evaluate whether, and if so, to what extent the non-hair BCIs can leverage the state-of-art decoding algorithms. Eleven healthy individuals participated in a 5-target SSVEP BCI experiment. A high-density EEG cap recorded SSVEPs from both hair-covered and non-hair-bearing regions. By evaluating and demonstrating the accessibility of nonhair-bearing behind-ear signals, our assessment characterized constraints on data length, trial numbers, channels, and their relationships with the decoding algorithms, providing practical guidelines to optimize SSVEP-based BCI systems in real-life applications.


Evoked Potentials, Visual , Algorithms , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography , Hair , Humans , Photic Stimulation
8.
Neuroimage ; 174: 407-419, 2018 07 01.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29578026

Inter- and intra-subject variability pose a major challenge to decoding human brain activity in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) based on non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG). Conventionally, a time-consuming and laborious training procedure is performed on each new user to collect sufficient individualized data, hindering the applications of BCIs on monitoring brain states (e.g. drowsiness) in real-world settings. This study proposes applying hierarchical clustering to assess the inter- and intra-subject variability within a large-scale dataset of EEG collected in a simulated driving task, and validates the feasibility of transferring EEG-based drowsiness-detection models across subjects. A subject-transfer framework is thus developed for detecting drowsiness based on a large-scale model pool from other subjects and a small amount of alert baseline calibration data from a new user. The model pool ensures the availability of positive model transferring, whereas the alert baseline data serve as a selector of decoding models in the pool. Compared with the conventional within-subject approach, the proposed framework remarkably reduced the required calibration time for a new user by 90% (18.00 min-1.72 ±â€¯0.36 min) without compromising performance (p = 0.0910) when sufficient existing data are available. These findings suggest a practical pathway toward plug-and-play drowsiness detection and can ignite numerous real-world BCI applications.


Brain/physiology , Electroencephalography/methods , Psychomotor Performance , Wakefulness , Brain Waves , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Calibration , Cluster Analysis , Humans , Reproducibility of Results , Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
9.
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng ; 26(2): 400-406, 2018 02.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29432111

Drowsy driving is one of the major causes that lead to fatal accidents worldwide. For the past two decades, many studies have explored the feasibility and practicality of drowsiness detection using electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. However, on the pathway of transitioning laboratory-oriented BCI into real-world environments, one chief challenge is to obtain high-quality EEG with convenience and long-term wearing comfort. Recently, acquiring EEG from non-hair-bearing (NHB) scalp areas has been proposed as an alternative solution to avoid many of the technical limitations resulted from the interference of hair between electrodes and the skin. Furthermore, our pilot study has shown that informative drowsiness-related EEG features are accessible from the NHB areas. This study extends the previous work to quantitatively evaluate the performance of drowsiness detection using cross-session validation with widely studied machine-learning classifiers. The offline results showed no significant difference between the accuracy of drowsiness detection using the NHB EEG and the whole-scalp EEG across all subjects ( ). The findings of this study demonstrate the efficacy and practicality of the NHB EEG for drowsiness detection and could catalyze explorations and developments of many other real-world BCI applications.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography/methods , Wakefulness/physiology , Automobile Driving/psychology , Cognition/physiology , Discriminant Analysis , Electrodes , Hair , Humans , Pilot Projects , Reproducibility of Results , Scalp , Support Vector Machine
10.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng ; 65(1): 104-112, 2018 01.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28436836

OBJECTIVE: This study proposes and evaluates a novel data-driven spatial filtering approach for enhancing steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) detection toward a high-speed brain-computer interface (BCI) speller. METHODS: Task-related component analysis (TRCA), which can enhance reproducibility of SSVEPs across multiple trials, was employed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of SSVEP signals by removing background electroencephalographic (EEG) activities. An ensemble method was further developed to integrate TRCA filters corresponding to multiple stimulation frequencies. This study conducted a comparison of BCI performance between the proposed TRCA-based method and an extended canonical correlation analysis (CCA)-based method using a 40-class SSVEP dataset recorded from 12 subjects. An online BCI speller was further implemented using a cue-guided target selection task with 20 subjects and a free-spelling task with 10 of the subjects. RESULTS: The offline comparison results indicate that the proposed TRCA-based approach can significantly improve the classification accuracy compared with the extended CCA-based method. Furthermore, the online BCI speller achieved averaged information transfer rates (ITRs) of 325.33 ± 38.17 bits/min with the cue-guided task and 198.67 ± 50.48 bits/min with the free-spelling task. CONCLUSION: This study validated the efficiency of the proposed TRCA-based method in implementing a high-speed SSVEP-based BCI. SIGNIFICANCE: The high-speed SSVEP-based BCIs using the TRCA method have great potential for various applications in communication and control.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography/methods , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted , Adult , Algorithms , Brain/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Task Performance and Analysis , Young Adult
11.
JAMA Ophthalmol ; 135(6): 550-557, 2017 06 01.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28448641

Importance: The current assessment of visual field loss in diseases such as glaucoma is affected by the subjectivity of patient responses and the lack of portability of standard perimeters. Objective: To describe the development and initial validation of a portable brain-computer interface (BCI) for objectively assessing visual function loss. Design, Setting, and Participants: This case-control study involved 62 eyes of 33 patients with glaucoma and 30 eyes of 17 healthy participants. Glaucoma was diagnosed based on a masked grading of optic disc stereophotographs. All participants underwent testing with a BCI device and standard automated perimetry (SAP) within 3 months. The BCI device integrates wearable, wireless, dry electroencephalogram and electrooculogram systems and a cellphone-based head-mounted display to enable the detection of multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials associated with visual field stimulation. The performances of global and sectoral multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials metrics to discriminate glaucomatous from healthy eyes were compared with global and sectoral SAP parameters. The repeatability of the BCI device measurements was assessed by collecting results of repeated testing in 20 eyes of 10 participants with glaucoma for 3 sessions of measurements separated by weekly intervals. Main Outcomes and Measures: Receiver operating characteristic curves summarizing diagnostic accuracy. Intraclass correlation coefficients and coefficients of variation for assessing repeatability. Results: Among the 33 participants with glaucoma, 19 (58%) were white, 12 (36%) were black, and 2 (6%) were Asian, while among the 17 participants with healthy eyes, 9 (53%) were white, 8 (47%) were black, and none were Asian. The receiver operating characteristic curve area for the global BCI multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials parameter was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.86-0.96), which was larger than for SAP mean deviation (area under the curve, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.72-0.90), SAP mean sensitivity (area under the curve, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.69-0.88; P = .03), and SAP pattern standard deviation (area under the curve, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.66-0.87; P = .01). No statistically significant differences were seen for the sectoral measurements between the BCI and SAP. Intraclass coefficients for global and sectoral parameters ranged from 0.74 to 0.92, and mean coefficients of variation ranged from 3.03% to 7.45%. Conclusions and Relevance: The BCI device may be useful for assessing the electrical brain responses associated with visual field stimulation. The device discriminated eyes with glaucomatous neuropathy from healthy eyes in a clinically based setting. Further studies should investigate the feasibility of the BCI device for home-based testing as well as for detecting visual function loss over time.


Blindness/diagnosis , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Glaucoma/diagnosis , Visual Fields/physiology , Aged , Blindness/etiology , Blindness/physiopathology , Equipment Design , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Glaucoma/complications , Glaucoma/physiopathology , Humans , Intraocular Pressure , Male , Prospective Studies , ROC Curve
12.
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng ; 25(1): 11-18, 2017 01.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27254871

Steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) has gained a lot of attention due to its robustness and high information transfer rate (ITR). However, transitioning well-controlled laboratory-oriented BCI demonstrations to real-world applications poses severe challenges for this exciting field. For instance, conducting BCI experiments usually requires skilled technicians to abrade the area of skin underneath each electrode and apply an electrolytic gel or paste to acquire high-quality SSVEPs from hair-covered areas. Our previous proof-of-concept study has proposed an alternative approach that employed electroencephalographic signals collected from easily accessible non-hair-bearing areas including neck, behind the ears, and face to realize an SSVEP-based BCI. The study results showed that, with proper electrode placements and advanced signal-processing algorithms, the SSVEPs measured from non-hair-bearing areas in off-line SSVEP experiments could achieve comparable SNR to that obtained from the hair-bearing occipital areas. This study extended the previous work to systematically investigate the costs and benefits of non-hair SSVEPs. Furthermore, this study developed and evaluated an online BCI system based solely on non-hair EEG signals. A 12-target identification task was employed to quantitatively assess the performance of the online SSVEP-based BCI system. All subjects successfully completed the tasks using non-hair SSVEPs with 84.08 ± 15.60% averaged accuracy and 30.21 ± 10.61 bits/min averaged ITR. The empirical results of this study demonstrated the practicality of implementing an SSVEP-based BCI based on signals from non-hair-bearing areas, significantly improving the feasibility and practicality of real-world BCIs.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography/instrumentation , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Visual Cortex/physiology , Visual Perception/physiology , Adult , Electroencephalography/methods , Equipment Design , Equipment Failure Analysis , Hair , Humans , Male , Online Systems , Photic Stimulation/methods , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and Specificity , Task Performance and Analysis
13.
J Neural Eng ; 13(6): 066003, 2016 12.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27705952

OBJECTIVE: Detecting the shift of covert visuospatial attention (CVSA) is vital for gaze-independent brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which might be the only communication approach for severely disabled patients who cannot move their eyes. Although previous studies had demonstrated that it is feasible to use CVSA-related electroencephalography (EEG) features to control a BCI system, the communication speed remains very low. This study aims to improve the speed and accuracy of CVSA detection by fusing EEG features of N2pc and steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). APPROACH: A new paradigm was designed to code the left and right CVSA with the N2pc and SSVEP features, which were then decoded by a classification strategy based on canonical correlation analysis. Eleven subjects were recruited to perform an offline experiment in this study. Temporal waves, amplitudes, and topographies for brain responses related to N2pc and SSVEP were analyzed. The classification accuracy derived from the hybrid EEG features (SSVEP and N2pc) was compared with those using the single EEG features (SSVEP or N2pc). MAIN RESULTS: The N2pc could be significantly enhanced under certain conditions of SSVEP modulations. The hybrid EEG features achieved significantly higher accuracy than the single features. It obtained an average accuracy of 72.9% by using a data length of 400 ms after the attention shift. Moreover, the average accuracy reached ∼80% (peak values above 90%) when using 2 s long data. SIGNIFICANCE: The results indicate that the combination of N2pc and SSVEP is effective for fast detection of CVSA. The proposed method could be a promising approach for implementing a gaze-independent BCI.


Attention/physiology , Electroencephalography/methods , Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory/physiology , Space Perception/physiology , Visual Perception/physiology , Adult , Algorithms , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Female , Fixation, Ocular , Humans , Male , Photic Stimulation , Reproducibility of Results , Young Adult
14.
PLoS One ; 10(10): e0140703, 2015.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26479067

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has been widely used in the detection of the steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The standard CCA method, which uses sinusoidal signals as reference signals, was first proposed for SSVEP detection without calibration. However, the detection performance can be deteriorated by the interference from the spontaneous EEG activities. Recently, various extended methods have been developed to incorporate individual EEG calibration data in CCA to improve the detection performance. Although advantages of the extended CCA methods have been demonstrated in separate studies, a comprehensive comparison between these methods is still missing. This study performed a comparison of the existing CCA-based SSVEP detection methods using a 12-class SSVEP dataset recorded from 10 subjects in a simulated online BCI experiment. Classification accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR) were used for performance evaluation. The results suggest that individual calibration data can significantly improve the detection performance. Furthermore, the results showed that the combination method based on the standard CCA and the individual template based CCA (IT-CCA) achieved the highest performance.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Evoked Potentials, Visual , Statistics as Topic/methods , Adult , Electroencephalography , Female , Humans , Male
15.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26736745

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate an online steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based BCI system using EarEEG. EarEEG is a novel recording concept where electrodes are embedded on the surface of earpieces customized to the individual anatomical shape of users' ear. It has been shown that the EarEEG can be used to record SSVEPs in previous studies. However, a long distance between the visual cortex and the ear makes the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of SSVEPs acquired by the EarEEG relatively low. Recently, filter bank- and training data-based canonical correlation analysis algorithms have shown significant performance improvement in terms of accuracy of target detection and information transfer rate (ITR). This study implemented an online four-class SSVEP-based BCI system using EarEEG. Four subjects participated in offline and online BCI experiments. For the offline classification, an average accuracy of 82.71±11.83 % was obtained using 4 sec-long SSVEPs acquired from earpieces. In the online experiment, all subjects successfully completed the tasks with an average accuracy of 87.92±12.10 %, leading to an average ITR of 16.60±6.55 bits/min. The results suggest that EarEEG can be used to perform practical BCI applications. The EarEEG has the potential to be used as a portable EEG recordings platform, that could enable real-world BCI applications.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted/instrumentation , Ear/physiology , Electroencephalography/instrumentation , Electroencephalography/methods , Humans
16.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26737815

Recent advances in mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) acquisition based on dry electrodes have started moving Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) applications from well-controlled laboratory settings to real-world environments. However, the application mechanisms and high impedance of dry electrodes over the hair-covered areas remain challenging for everyday use of BCI. In addition, whole-scalp recordings are not always necessary or applicable due to various practical constrains. Therefore, alternative montages for EEG recordings to meet the everyday needs are in-demand. Inspired by our previous work on measuring non-hair-bearing steady state visual evoked potentials for BCI applications, this study explores the feasibility and efficacy of detecting cognitive lapses of participants based on EEG signals collected from the non-hair-bearing areas. Study results suggest that informative EEG features associated with lapses could be assessed from non-hair-bearing areas with comparable accuracy obtained from the whole-scalp EEG. The design principles, validation processes and promising findings reported in this study may enable and/or facilitate numerous BCI applications in real-world environments.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography/instrumentation , Electroencephalography/methods , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Hair/physiology , Scalp/physiology , Electrodes , Humans
17.
Front Neurosci ; 8: 321, 2014.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25352773

In America, 60% of adults reported that they have driven a motor vehicle while feeling drowsy, and at least 15-20% of fatal car accidents are fatigue-related. This study translates previous laboratory-oriented neurophysiological research to design, develop, and test an On-line Closed-loop Lapse Detection and Mitigation (OCLDM) System featuring a mobile wireless dry-sensor EEG headgear and a cell-phone based real-time EEG processing platform. Eleven subjects participated in an event-related lane-keeping task, in which they were instructed to manipulate a randomly deviated, fixed-speed cruising car on a 4-lane highway. This was simulated in a 1st person view with an 8-screen and 8-projector immersive virtual-reality environment. When the subjects experienced lapses or failed to respond to events during the experiment, auditory warning was delivered to rectify the performance decrements. However, the arousing auditory signals were not always effective. The EEG spectra exhibited statistically significant differences between effective and ineffective arousing signals, suggesting that EEG spectra could be used as a countermeasure of the efficacy of arousing signals. In this on-line pilot study, the proposed OCLDM System was able to continuously detect EEG signatures of fatigue, deliver arousing warning to subjects suffering momentary cognitive lapses, and assess the efficacy of the warning in near real-time to rectify cognitive lapses. The on-line testing results of the OCLDM System validated the efficacy of the arousing signals in improving subjects' response times to the subsequent lane-departure events. This study may lead to a practical on-line lapse detection and mitigation system in real-world environments.

18.
Int J Neural Syst ; 24(6): 1450019, 2014 Sep.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25081427

Implementing a complex spelling program using a steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) remains a challenge due to difficulties in stimulus presentation and target identification. This study aims to explore the feasibility of mixed frequency and phase coding in building a high-speed SSVEP speller with a computer monitor. A frequency and phase approximation approach was developed to eliminate the limitation of the number of targets caused by the monitor refresh rate, resulting in a speller comprising 32 flickers specified by eight frequencies (8-15 Hz with a 1 Hz interval) and four phases (0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°). A multi-channel approach incorporating Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) and SSVEP training data was proposed for target identification. In a simulated online experiment, at a spelling rate of 40 characters per minute, the system obtained an averaged information transfer rate (ITR) of 166.91 bits/min across 13 subjects with a maximum individual ITR of 192.26 bits/min, the highest ITR ever reported in electroencephalogram (EEG)-based BCIs. The results of this study demonstrate great potential of a high-speed SSVEP-based BCI in real-life applications.


Brain-Computer Interfaces , Brain/physiology , Communication , Evoked Potentials, Visual/physiology , Algorithms , Animals , Biophysics , Computer Simulation , Electroencephalography , Humans , Photic Stimulation , Reaction Time/physiology , Time Factors
19.
PLoS One ; 9(6): e99235, 2014.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24918435

In the study of steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs), it remains a challenge to present visual flickers at flexible frequencies using monitor refresh rate. For example, in an SSVEP-based brain-computer interface (BCI), it is difficult to present a large number of visual flickers simultaneously on a monitor. This study aims to explore whether or how a newly proposed frequency approximation approach changes signal characteristics of SSVEPs. At 10 Hz and 12 Hz, the SSVEPs elicited using two refresh rates (75 Hz and 120 Hz) were measured separately to represent the approximation and constant-period approaches. This study compared amplitude, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), phase, latency, scalp distribution, and frequency detection accuracy of SSVEPs elicited using the two approaches. To further prove the efficacy of the approximation approach, this study implemented an eight-target BCI using frequencies from 8-15 Hz. The SSVEPs elicited by the two approaches were found comparable with regard to all parameters except amplitude and SNR of SSVEPs at 12 Hz. The BCI obtained an averaged information transfer rate (ITR) of 95.0 bits/min across 10 subjects with a maximum ITR of 120 bits/min on two subjects, the highest ITR reported in the SSVEP-based BCIs. This study clearly showed that the frequency approximation approach can elicit robust SSVEPs at flexible frequencies using monitor refresh rate and thereby can largely facilitate various SSVEP-related studies in neural engineering and visual neuroscience.


Evoked Potentials, Visual , Flicker Fusion , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Electroencephalography , Humans
20.
Front Hum Neurosci ; 8: 370, 2014.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24917804

EEG-based Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are facing basic challenges in real-world applications. The technical difficulties in developing truly wearable BCI systems that are capable of making reliable real-time prediction of users' cognitive states in dynamic real-life situations may seem almost insurmountable at times. Fortunately, recent advances in miniature sensors, wireless communication and distributed computing technologies offered promising ways to bridge these chasms. In this paper, we report an attempt to develop a pervasive on-line EEG-BCI system using state-of-art technologies including multi-tier Fog and Cloud Computing, semantic Linked Data search, and adaptive prediction/classification models. To verify our approach, we implement a pilot system by employing wireless dry-electrode EEG headsets and MEMS motion sensors as the front-end devices, Android mobile phones as the personal user interfaces, compact personal computers as the near-end Fog Servers and the computer clusters hosted by the Taiwan National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) as the far-end Cloud Servers. We succeeded in conducting synchronous multi-modal global data streaming in March and then running a multi-player on-line EEG-BCI game in September, 2013. We are currently working with the ARL Translational Neuroscience Branch to use our system in real-life personal stress monitoring and the UCSD Movement Disorder Center to conduct in-home Parkinson's disease patient monitoring experiments. We shall proceed to develop the necessary BCI ontology and introduce automatic semantic annotation and progressive model refinement capability to our system.

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