2009 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 127-133
The author has investigated brain activations to uncover the nature of brain function, and has developed brain-computer interface (BCI) system to provide better communication abilities to paralyzed or locked-in patients. BCI detects brain activities by non-invasive measurements (e.g. EEG, NIRS), and user's intentions or "thoughts" are extracted and detected. In this paper, some of our research activities, including EEG-based BCI system based on motor imagery to detect commands from activities in sensory-motor cortex induced by imagination of user's limb movement, are introduced. Pfurtscheller et al. and I have developed a BCI system, called "Brain Switch", to realize a binary switch by detecting bursts of beta oscillation from one-channel EEG. And the effects of online feedback training using EEG and NIRS (near-infrared spectroscopy) signals of interest have been investigated. It was found that such online feedback training using measured brain signals is effective for improving S/N ratio and reproducibility of measured signal. It is expected that the neuro-feedback system will contribute to the real BCI system which enables bi-directional communication between brain and external environment.
