CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Brain Computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that recognized

users’ command only from his or her brainwaves and reacts according to them. For this
purpose PC and subject is trained. Simple task can consist of desired motion of an arrow
displayed on the screen only through subject's imaginary of something (e.g. motion of
his or her left or right hand). As the consequence of imaging process, certain
characteristics of the brainwaves are raised and can be used for user's command
recognition, e.g. motor mu waves (brain waves of alpha range frequency associated with
physical movements or intention to move).
An Electroencephalogram based Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) provides a
new communication channel between the human brain and a computer. Patients who
suffer from severe motor impairments (late stage of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS), severe cerebral palsy, head trauma and spinal injuries) may use such a BCI
system as an alternative form of communication by mental activity.
The use of EEG signals as a vector of communication between men and
machines represents one of the current challenges in signal theory research. The
principal element of such a communication system, more known as “Brain Computer
Interface”, is the interpretation of the EEG signals related to the characteristic
parameters of brain electrical activity.
The role of signal processing is crucial in the development of a real-time Brain
Computer Interface. Until recently, several improvements have been made in this area,
but none of them have been successful enough to use them in a real system. The goal of
creating more effective classification algorithms, have focused numerous investigations
in the search of new techniques of feature extraction.
The main objective of this project is the establishment of a Time – Frequency
method, which allows EEG signal classification between two given tasks (“geometric
figure rotation” and “mental letter composing”), as well as the familiarization with the
state of the art in time-frequency and Brain Computer Interface. The extension of this
method to a five-task classification problem will be also considered.

CMRTC 1
 The electrical nature of the human nervous system has been recognized for more
Than a century. It is well known that the variation of the surface potential distribution
on the scalp reflects functional activities emerging from the underlying brain [2.1]. This
surface potential variation can be recorded by affixing an array of electrodes to the
scalp, and measuring the voltage between pairs of these electrodes, which are then
filtered, amplified, and recorded. The resulting data is called the EEG. Fig. 1-1 shows
waveforms of a 10 second EEG segment containing six recording channels, while the
recording sites are illustrated in Fig. 1-2.

Figure 1-1. A segment of a multichannel EEG

CMRTC 2
 Figure 1-2. The 10-20 System of Electrode Placement

Each site has a letter (to identify the lobe) and a number or another letter to
identify the hemisphere location. The letters F, T, C, P, and O stand for Frontal,
Temporal, Central, Parietal and Occipital. (Note that there is no “central”, but this is just
used for identification process).
Even numbers (2, 4, 6, and 8) refer to the right hemisphere and odd numbers (1,
3, 5, and 7) refer to the left hemisphere. The z refers to an electrode placed on the
midline.
Nasion: point between the forehead and nose.
Inions: Bump at back of skull

CMRTC 3
 CHAPTER 2
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that acquires and analyzes neural
Signals with the goal of creating a communication channel directly between the brain
and the computer. Such a channel potentially has multiple uses.

For example:
• Bioengineering applications: assist devices for disabled people.
• Human subject monitoring: sleep disorders, neurological diseases, attention
monitoring, and/or overall "mental state".
• Neuroscience research: real-time methods for correlating observable behavior with
recorded neural signals.
• Man – Machine Interaction: Interface devices between human and computers.

For many years, people have speculated that electroencephalographic (EEG)

activity or other measures of brain function might provide this new channel. Over the
past decade, productive BCI research programs have begun. Facilitated and encouraged
by the new understanding of brain functions and by the low-cost computer equipments,
these programs have concentrated mainly in developing new communication and
control technologies for people with severe neuromuscular disorders. The immediate
goal is to provide communication capabilities so that any subject can control the
external world without using the brain's normal output pathways of peripheral nerves
and muscles.

Nowadays, such activities drive their efforts in:

• Brain (neural) signal acquisition: development of both invasive and non-invasive
techniques for high quality signal acquisition.
• Algorithms and processing: advanced machine learning and signal processing
algorithms, which take advantage of cheap/fast computing power (i.e. Moore's Law2) to
enable online real-time processing.

CMRTC 4
• Underlying neuroscience: a better understanding of the neural code, the functional
neuro-anatomy, the physiology and how these are related to perception and cognition,
enabling signals to be interpreted in the context of the neurobiology.

Present BCI’s use EEG activity recorded at the scalp to control cursor
movement, select letters or icons, or operate a neuroprosthesis. The central element in
each BCI is a translation algorithm that converts electrophysiological input from the
user into output that controls external devices. BCI operation depends on effective
interaction between two adaptive controllers: the user who encodes his or her
commands in the electrophysiological input provided to the BCI, and the computer
which recognizes the command contained in the input and expresses them in the device
control. Current BCI’s have maximum information transfer rates of 5-25 bits/min.

Achievement of greater speed and accuracy depends on improvements in:

• Signal acquisition: methods for increasing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to
interference ratio (S/I)) as well as optimally combining spatial and temporal
information.
• Single trial analysis: overcoming noise and interference in order to avoid averaging
and maximize bit rate.
• Co-learning: jointly optimizing combined man-machine system and taking advantage
of feedback.
• Experimental paradigms for interpretable readable signals: mapping the task to the
brain state of the user (or vice versa).
• Understanding algorithms and models within the context of the neurobiology:
Building predictive models having neurophysiologic ally meaningful parameters and
incorporating physically and biologically meaningful priors.

CMRTC 5
The common structure of a Brain Computer Interface is the following:
1) Signal Acquisition: the EEG signals are obtained from the brain through invasive or
non-invasive methods (for example, electrodes). After, the signal is amplified and
sampled.
2) Signal Pre-Processing: once the signals are acquired, it is necessary to clean them.
3) Signal Classification: once the signals are cleaned, they will be processed and
classified to find out which kind of mental task the subject is performing.
4) Computer Interaction: once the signals are classified, they will be used by an
appropriate algorithm for the development of a certain application.

2-1. BCI common structure.

CMRTC 6
 CHAPTER 3
BRAIN SIGNALS
Brain patterns form wave shapes that are commonly sinusoidal. Usually, they are
measured from peak to peak and normally range from 0.5 to 100 µV in amplitude,
which is about 100 times lower than ECG signals. By means of Fourier transform power
spectrum from the raw EEG signal is derived. In power spectrum contribution of sine
waves with different frequencies are visible. Although the spectrum is continuous,
ranging from 0 Hz to one half of sampling frequency, the brain state of the individual
may make certain frequencies more dominant. Brain waves have been categorized into
four basic groups.
• Beta (>10 Hz)
• Alpha (8-13 Hz)
• Theta (4-8 Hz)
• Delta (0.5-4 Hz)
The best - known and most extensively studied rhythm of the human brain is the
normal alpha rhythm. It can be usually observed better in the posterior and occipital
regions with typical amplitude about 50 µV (P-P). Alpha activity is induced by closing
the eyes and by relaxation, and abolished by eye opening or alerting by any mechanism
(thinking, calculating).

CMRTC 7
 CHAPTER 4
BRAIN SIGNALS MEASUREMENT AND PROCESSING
Encephalographic measurements is consisted of
• Electrodes with conductive media
• Amplifiers with filters
• A/D converter

Electrodes read signal from the head surface, amplifiers bring the microvolt
signals into range where they can be digitalized accurately, converter changes signals
from analog to digital form, and personal computer process this data.

The EEG electrodes and their proper function are critical for acquiring
appropriately high quality data for interpretation. Many types of electrodes exist, often
with different characteristics. Basically there are following types of electrodes:
• Disposable (gel-less and pre-gelled types)
• Reusable disc electrodes (gold, silver, stainless steel or tin)
• Headbands and electrode caps
• Saline-based electrodes
• Needle electrodes

For multichannel montages, electrode caps are preferred, with number of

electrodes installed on this surface. Commonly used scalp electrodes consist of Ag-
AgCl discs, 1 to 3 mm in diameter, with long flexible leads that be plugged into an
amplifier. AgCl electrodes can accurately record also very slow changes in potential.
Needle electrodes are used for long time recordings and are invasively inserted under
scalp.
In 1958, International Federation on Electroencephalography and Clinical
neurophysiology adopted standardization for electrode placement called 10-20 electrode
placement system. This system standardized physical placement and designations of
electrodes an the scalp. The head is divided into proportional distances from prominent
skull landmarks (nasion, pre auricural points and inions) to provide adequate coverage
of all regions of the brain. Label 10-20 designates proportional distance on percents

CMRTC 8
between ears and nose where points for electrodes are chosen. Best results are in with
invasive measurement techniques, where electrodes are direct on the brain and are
scanning only the small location.

4-1. Electrodes placement in general

4.1 Amplifiers and Filters

The signals need to be amplified to make them compatible with A/D converters.
Amplifiers adequate to measure these signals have to satisfy very specific requirements.
They have to provide amplification selective to the physiological signal, reject
superimposed noise and interference signals, and guarantee protection from damages
through voltage and current surges for both patients and electronic equipment. The basic
requirements that a biopotential amplifier has no satisfy are:
• The physiological process to be monitored should not be influenced in any way
by the amplifier.
• The measured signal should not be distorted.
• The amplifier should provide the best possible separation of signal and
interferences.
• The amplifier has to offer protection of the patient from any hazard of electric
shock.
• The amplifier itself has to be protected against damages that migh result from
high input voltages as they occur during the application of defibrillators or
electrosurgical instrumentation.

CMRTC 9
4.2 Artifacts
Among basic evaluation of the EEG traces belongs scanning for signal
distortions called art effects. Usually it is a sequence with higher amplitude and different
shape on comparison to signal sequences that doesn't suffer by anu large contamination.
The artifact in the recorded EEG may be either patient- related or technical. Patient -
related artifacts are unwanted physiological signals that may significantly disturb the
EEG. Technical artifacts, such as AC power line noise, can be decreased by decreasing
electrode impedance and by shorter electrode wires. The most common EEG artifact
sources can be classified in following way:
Patient related:
• Any minor body movements
• EMG
• ECG (pulse, pace-maker)
• Eye movements
• sweating
Technical:
• 50/60 Hz
• Impedance fluctuation
• Cable movements
• Broken wire contacts
• Too much electrode paste or dried pieces
• Low battery

Excluding the artifact segments from the EEG traces can be managed by the
trained experts or automatically. For better discrimination of different physiological
artifacts, additional electrodes for monitoring eye movement, ECG, and muscle activity
may be important.
In Brain science Institute RIKEN developed the ICELAB for signal processing
which is describing the picture below.

CMRTC 10
 4-2. ICELAB for signal processing

The preprocessing tools include: Principal Component Analysis (PCA),

prewhitening, filtering: High Pass Filtering (HPF), Low Pass Filtering (LPF), Sub band
filters (Butterworth, Chebyshev, Elliptic) with adjustable order of filters, frequency sub
bands and the number of sub bands.

CMRTC 11
 CHAPTER 5
BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE ARCHITECTURE

The processing unit is subdivided into a preprocessing unit, responsible for

artifact detection, and a feature extraction and recognition unit that identifies the
command sent by the user to the BCI. The output subsystem generates an action
associated to this command.

5-1. Brain computer Interface Architecture

CHAPTER 6

CMRTC 12
 NEUROPSHYCOLOGICAL SIGNALS USED IN BCI

Interfaces based on brain signals require on-line detection of mental states from
Spontaneous activity: different cortical areas are activated while thinking different
things (i.e. a mathematical computation, an imagined arm movement, a music
composition, etc...). The information of these "mental states" can be recorded with
different methods. Neuropsychological signals can be generated by one or more of the
following three: implanted methods, evoked potentials (also known as event related
potentials), and operant conditioning. Both evoked potential and operant conditioning
methods are normally externally-based BCIs as the electrodes are located on the scalp.
Describes the different signals in common use. It may be noted that some of the
described signals fit into multiple categories. As an example, single neural recordings
may use operant conditioning in order to train neurons for control or may accept the
natural occurring signals for control. Where this occurs, the signal is described under the
implanted methods use signals from single or small groups of neurons in order to
control a BCI.

Evoked potentials (EPs) are brain potentials that are evoked by the occurrence of
a sensory stimulus. They are usually obtained by averaging a number of brief EEG
segments time-registered to a stimulus in a simple task. In a BCI, EPs may provide
control when the BCI application produces the appropriate stimuli. This paradigm has
the benefit of requiring little to no training to use the BCI at the cost of having to make
users wait for the relevant stimulus presentation. EPs offer discrete control for almost all
users, as EPs are an inherent response. Operant conditioning is a method for modifying
the behavior (an operant), which Utilizes contingencies between a discriminative
stimulus, an operant response, and a reinforce to change the probability of a response
occurring again in a given situation. In the BCI framework, it is used to train the
patients to control their EEG.as it is presented in table shown in below, several methods
use operant conditioning on spontaneous EEG signals for BCI control. The main feature
of this kind of signals is that it enables continuous rather than discrete control.

CMRTC 13
 6-1. Common neuropsychological signals used in BCIs

CMRTC 14
 CHAPTER 7
BCI AND ITS APPLICATIONS
In the context of BCI, EEG signals are mainly analyzed in time, frequency, and
time-frequency domains. Most of the research groups work in the frequency domain and
extract the information characterizing mental activities from the nonparametric and
parametric spectral representations of EEG. Also joint spectral properties of the EEG
components are analyzed do detecting particular emotional states. The relationship
between the time courses of the signals coming from different electrodes serves as an
indication of motor activities. Useful information can alos be extracted from particular
brain configurations that can be interpreted in terms of brain states.

Time-frequency and time-scale representations of EEG signals were exploited

for finding those neuronal groups that synchronize their activity as a response to a
particular stimulus. From that above considerations it can be stated that mental
activities, when mapped onto the time-frequency representation of EEG signals, display
a picture that illustrates the cooperative activity consists in analyzing the joint time-
frequency-space correlations between the components of an EEG signal.

The Brain Communicator is well-suited for patients who are severely paralyzed
or locked-in, and who therefore have very limited options in their communications with
others, such as ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) patients on a ventilator. Patients
must be cognitively intact with no history of epilepsy.

There are many applications that are still in development but also some of them
are quite useful. At Graz University of technology was developed BCI that uses
oscillatory EEG signals, recorded during specific mental activity, as input and provides
a control option by its output. The obtained output signals are presently evaluated for
different purposes, such as cursor control, selection of letters or words, or control of a
prosthesis or orthotics. They are already working on Direct Brain Interface that
recognizes voluntary activity within the brain and can be used to control assistive
technologies without requiring any physical movement. This technology uses the

CMRTC 15
electrocorticogram (ECoG), recorded from implanted electrodes which are placed
directly on the cortex.

There are two choices. One is the patented Neurotrophic Electrode, whereby the
electrode tip is implanted 5mm under the surface of the brain and the outer end is
attached to amplifiers and FM transmitters located on the skull, under the scalp. No
wires or batteries are used. Power is provided by a power induction system similar to
your toothbrush holder that charges the toothbrush overnight. This implantation requires
major surgery lasting about 10 hours. The neural signals are transmitted to and
processed by a computer to activate a switch or drive a cursor and hence provide
communication. The other option is to implant a patented conductive skull screw that
does not enter the brain. It records from local field potentials over the surface of the
cortex, rather like a very pricise EEG (electroencephalogram). These signals can be
used to activate a switch and hence provide communication.
Before implantation, the subject undergoes a functional MRI. This determines if
there is brain activity even when there is no movement. The implant target is thus
chosen. The system is also used at surgery to guide the surgeon onto target for accurate
implantation. The Army is also interested in using BCI to make faster responses
possible for figter pilots. The combination of EEG signals and artifacts combine to
create a signal that can be used to fly a virtual plane. One can imagine that the military
would have multiple uses for a system that speeds up response times in areas as tactical
maneuvering and even targeting and firing weapons. Currently, the main focus of Air
Force research is for Alternative Control Technology (ACT). The goal of the ACT
program is to enable communication with computers while the computer users’ hands
are busy with other tasks.

CMRTC 16
 7-1. Computer connected to human brain for research

CMRTC 17
 CHAPTER 8
PRESENT AND FUTURE

The practical use of BCI technology depends on an interdisciplinary cooperation

between neuroscientists, engineers, computer programmers, psychologists, and
Rehabilitation specialists, in order to develop appropriate applications, to identify
appropriate users groups, and to pay careful attention to the needs and desires of
Individual users.

The prospects for controlling computers through neural signals are indeed
difficult to judge because the field of research is still in its infancy. Much progress has
been made in taking advantage of the power of personal computers to perform the
operations needed to recognize patterns in biological impulses, but the search for new
and more useful signals still continues.

If the advances of the 21st century match the strides of the past few decades,
direct neural communication between humans and computers may ultimately mature
and find widespread use. Perhaps newly purchased computers will one day arrive with
biological signal sensors and thought-recognition software built in, just as keyboard and
mouse are commonly found on today's units.

CMRTC 18
 CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

As we can see there are many useful applications of brain computer

interface. It can be very helpful for people with moving disabilities as
human - machine interface. But it can be also used for control of human
body muscles. There are also many possibilities in military domain. Last
are the applications for making our lives easier. So one day maybe all
people are wearing BCI-caps and using hands only for eating. Or even
without caps but with implants right in CNS. To bring this in reality it has
to been d

The role of signal processing is crucial in the development of a real-

time Brain Computer Interface. Until recently, several improvements have
been made in this area, but none of them has been entirely successful. The
goal of creating more effective classification algorithms, have focused
numerous investigations in the search of new techniques of feature
extraction. A BCI has to be useful for a wide variety of tasks, for instance,
when a BCI is used as the main control device for a handicapped
individual. In this study, signals from five different tasks were used as the
basis for tests. Among the five tasks, multiplication problem solving,
geometric figure rotation, mental letter composing, visual counting, and A
baseline task where the subject was instructed to think about nothing in
particular, two (“rotation” and “letter”) had been problematic in a previous
classification method based on autoregressive models. The discovery of a
new method founded on Time Frequency Representations was of vital
importance not only for these two tasks, but also for future research.

CMRTC 19
 CHAPTER 10
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. J.R. Wolpaw, D.J. McFarland, G.W. Neat, and C.A. Forneris. "An EEG-based
Brain-computer interface for cursor control". Electroenceph. Clan.
Neurophysiology. v.78, pp. 252—258, 1991.

2. G. Pfurtscheller, J. Kalcher, Ch. Neuper, D. Flotzinger, and M. Pregenzer, "On-

line EEG classification during externally-paced hand movements using a neural
network based Classifier", Electroenceph. Cline. Neurophysiol.", v.99, pp. 416
—425, 1996.

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-Computer-Interface.

CMRTC 20