Patient Plays a Musical Instrument While Brain Tumour Removed

A team of neurosurgeons at a Spain hospital successfully removed a brain tumour while the patient was conscious and playing saxophone. With this approach it was possible to operate without damaging the part of the brain involved in musical language.

Aguilera, who was told he had a brain tumour after suffering dizzy spells, said: “Music is what has accompanied me half a lifetime, so when the doctors told me I could do that, I did not think twice.”

This is clearly one of the many advances in medicine and neuroscience. More information here.

Silent Speech EEG Classification

Silent Speech Classification is a very interesting BCI research using a large number of electrodes where several methods are applied as Adaptive Collection, Common Spatial Patterns (CSP), Support Vector Machine with Gaussian kernel (SVM-G) and Relevance Vector Machine with Gaussian kernel (RVM). 

Mariko Matsumoto is one of the researches dedicated to this area published last year two papers: “Silent speech decoder using adaptive collection,” “Verification of Adaptive Collection for BCI” and "BCI using Silent Speech for Speech Assistive Device".

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Brain Computer Interfaces: Fundamentals and Methods

A new BCI book created by Laurent Bougrain, Maureen Clerc and Fabien Lotte will be released soon.

With a price of $140 pre-orders are available here.

OpenVibe 1.1.0 - new version

BCI OpenVibe application has since October a new version available for download. This toolbox allows the creation of BCI circuits using predefined modules or created according to our needs. It was mencioned before in this blog with the posts: OpenVibe 3D Voxel and Topographic Map, Open Source Software For EEG and EEG Animation Using Interactive Matlab Toolbox. 

Following are some of the new features implemented:

• Plugins: Implemented MLP classification algorithm; Added a Regularized version of the CSP filter trainer; Added a new plugin category for evaluation; Added 3 new boxes to evaluation: kappa coefficient, ROCCurve, General Statistics Generator.
• New open source drivers: eemagine EEGO.
• New binary drivers: Brain Rhythm 8, Simulator, SmartBCI and Wearable Sensing Dry Sensor Interface.
• More Plugins: The LDA now has a native multiclass mode; The Spatial Filter box now accepts a configuration file which contains a matrix (refer to the doc for the format specification); The xDawn and the CSP trainer can generate matrix file for the spatial filter; Various optimizations of the Spatial Filter; Changed Signal Display refresh paradigm to make it handle bigger datasets; TCP writer box sends Streamed Matrix and Signal in row-major order.
• Misc: Added ASCII import and export functions for IMatrix matrices
• Drivers: Extended Emotiv EPOC support to gnu/linux; Added Software tagging to the universal TMSI driver; Moved the check impedance option to be part of driver preferences; Various updates to BrainProducts VAmp, BrainProducts Brainamp.
• Tutorials: Added an example of stimulation passing to Python.

It is also supported now by more than 20 acquisition devices:

ANT, ANT/EEmagine, Biosemi, BrainMaster, Brain Products, Cognionics, CTF/VSM, EGI, Emotiv, gTec, LabStreamingLayer, mBrainTrain, MCS/MKS, Micromed, MindMedia, Mitsar, Neuroelectrics, Neurosky, OpenBCI, OpenEEG, TMSi.

For more information press here.

Interactive Brain Injury

The Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from the Center of Excellence for Medical Multimedia enables the use of this Interactive Brain where it shows and describes the different brain areas, function and result of injury. 

This online application offers 5 view options: Side view, Inside view, Visual anatomy, Motility and Left & right brain function. At the right column 3 other options: Description area, Function and Result of injury. The next picture shows a visual anatomy of optic radiations:

The trauma can cause nerve cells in the brain to stretch, tear, or pull apart, making it difficult or impossible for the cells to send messages from one part of the brain to another, and to the rest of the body. TBI can interfere with how the brain works, including thinking, remembering, seeing, and controlling movements. Traumatic brain injury can range from mild to very severe depending on many things, including the force of the trauma, previous brain injuries and how quickly emergency medical treatment is given.

Try it pressing here! 

Thinking the Music and Write it Directly

Hi-tech channel from Euronews has just published a small report about a "new way of thinking" the music. This research group predicts that in a near future, using the BCIs, will be possible  to “think” directly the music onto the page, without having to write it down.

Pianist Francesco Prode is wearing a neural sensor on his head, which picks up his brainwaves and sends them to a laptop. In front of him is a Kinect motion sensor of the kind used in video games. As he passes his hand in front of the device, just like an orchestra director, the pianist activates the reproduction of a fragment of piano sound previously recorded by a computer.

For more information press here.

Graz-BCI Team looking for New Members

The BCI Research Group from Graz University are looking for motivated students to work in their project. 

We are a group of students that it has set itself the goal, the team with paraplegic persons ("pilot") to develop a system which makes it possible to control with the power of thought, a (s) Computer (play). Our aim is to participate with our pilots in an international competition in 2016 in Zurich and to compete with more than 100 teams from around the world.

To sign up and get more information press here. 

Graz-BCI Team looking for New Members

The BCI Research Group from Graz University are looking for motivated students to work in their project. 

We are a group of students that it has set itself the goal, the team with paraplegic persons ("pilot") to develop a system which makes it possible to control with the power of thought, a (s) Computer (play). Our aim is to participate with our pilots in an international competition in 2016 in Zurich and to compete with more than 100 teams from around the world.

To sign up and get more information press here. 

Software for Visual Psychophysics

Prof. Hans Strasburger from Universität München brings together to this page the various existing tools to work with Psychophysics, divided by 15 topics:

• Libraries, Public Domain and Commercial Applications for Psychophysics;
• Psychophysical data analysis, SDT;
• Ophthalmology/Optometry/Neuroophthalmology;
• Psychological Experimenting Systems;
• Cognitive Neuroscience;
• (...)

How well do we see? How can visual function be described and which mechanisms can be thought to underly? Visual psychophysics tries to give answers to these general questions, and research in this area needs specialised software. This is an overview on what is available.

PsychToolbox, for Matlab or Octave, is one of tools example commonly used in SSVEP.

Singular Spectrum Analysis of Biomedical Signals

This book created by Saeid Sanei and Hossein Hassani covers new concepts of mathematical and signal processing providing new signal processing results in the form of signals, graphs, images, and tables.

"Recent advancements in signal processing and computerised methods are expected to underpin the future progress of biomedical research and technology, particularly in measuring and assessing signals and images from the human body. This book focuses on singular spectrum analysis (SSA), an effective approach for single channel signal analysis (...)"

It will be available at November, 2015 with a price of $110.

A Subject-independent Pattern-based BCI

A provisional PDF file corresponding to the article "A Subject-independent Pattern-based BCI", created by Andreas M. Ray,  Ranganatha Sitaram,  Mohit Rana,  Emanuele Pasqualotto,  Korhan Buyukturkoglu,  Cuntai Guan,  Kai Keng Ang, Cristián Tejos,  Francisco J. Zamorano, Francisco Aboitiz, Niels Birbaumer and Sergio Ruiz was published in Frontiers in Behavioral NeuroScience . 

"A brain-computer interface (BCI) enables direct communication from the brain to devices, bypassing the traditional pathway of peripheral nerves and muscles. Traditional approaches to BCIs require the user to train for weeks or even months to learn to control the BCI. In contrast, BCIs based on machine learning only require a calibration session of less than an hour before the system can be used, since the machine adapts to the user's existing brain signals. However, this calibration session has to be repeated before each use of the BCI due to inter-session variability, which makes using a BCI still a time-consuming and an error-prone enterprise. In this work, we present a second-order baselining procedure that reduces these variations, and enables the creation of a BCI that can be applied to new subjects without such a calibration session. The method was validated with a motor-imagery classification task performed by 109 subjects. Results showed that our subject-independent BCI without calibration performs as well as the popular common spatial patterns (CSP)-based BCI that does use a calibration session."

For more information / read the (provisional) full text press here. 

BCI Research: A State-of-the-Art Summary 4

This new book "BCI Research: A State-of-the-Art Summary 4" edited by Christoph Guger, Gernot Muller-Putz and Bredan Allison, with a price of $55, is available for pre-order in January 2006 relating the most promising BCI projects.

BCI research is developing quickly, with many new ideas, research groups, and improved technologies. BCIs enable people to communicate just by thinking – without any movement at all. Several different groups have helped severely disabled users communicate with BCIs, and BCI technology is also being extended to facilitate recovery from stroke, epilepsy, and other conditions. (...) This book summarizes the 2014 BCI Award, including the ten projects that were nominated, the winner, and analyses and discussions of the submitted projects and how they reflect general trends in BCI development. 

The National Center for Adaptative Neurotechnologies (NCAN) located on New Scotland Avenue in Albany, New York, are building an infrastructure that supports real-time interactions with the central nervous system (CNS) helping to restore a skill such as locomotion.

"Progress in medical science now enables people with severe paralysis to live for many years. Many of these individuals have great difficulty in communicating. Some may even be entirely "locked in" to their bodies: their minds are functioning, but they cannot move a single muscle to communicate in any way. The capacity for simple communication could greatly improve the quality of their lives. The Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies has addressed this problem by developing a new generation of brain-based communication devices (BCI) that can provide communication and control functions to people who have lost muscle control. By recording brain waves from the scalp and then decoding them, this system allows people to move a computer cursor up/down and left/right, to spell words, and to perform other simple control functions."

The research areas are divided by Guiding Beneficial Plasticity, Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Based Rehabilitation and Characterizing and Interacting with Cortical Processes. During 2015 some papers have been published in peer-reviewed neuroscientic, neuroengineering and clinical journals related to this subjects:

• Cortical alpha activity predicts the confidence in an impending action;
• Brain-to-text: Decoding spoken sentences from phone representations (...);
• A general framework for dynamic cortical function:ons (FBO) hypothesis;
• The Plurality of Human Brain-Computer Interfacing;
• Electrocorticographic activity over sensorimotor cortex and motor function (...);
• Restoring walking after spinal cord injury (...);
• Word-level language for P300 spellers based on discriminative graphical models;
• NeuralAct: A Tool to Visualize Electrocortical (ECoG) Activity on a 3D Model (...);
• Targeted neuroplasticity for rehabilitation;
• Toward independent home use of BCIs: a decision algorithm (...);
• Electrocorticographic representations of segmental features in continuous speech.

For more informations about NCAN press here.

Identification of Motor Imagery Movements from EEG Signals Using Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Transform

Conference: 4th ICACCI ’15, Kerala, India
DOI: 10.1109/ICACCI.2015.7275623

Abstract: (...) Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Trans-form (DTCWT) domain based feature extraction method has been proposed to identify left and right hand motor imagery movements from EEG signals. After first performing auto-correlation of the EEG signals to enhance the weak brain signals and reduce noise, the EEG signals are decomposed into several bands of real and imaginary coefficients using DTCWT. The energy of the coefficients from relevant bands have been extracted as features and from the one way ANOVA analysis, scatter plots, box plots and histograms, this features are shown to be promising to distinguish various kinds of EEG signals. (...) K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers have been shown to provide a good mean accuracy of 91.07% which is better than several existing techniques.

To read the full article click here.

Human-Computer Interface Technologies for the Motor Impaired

"Human-Computer Interface Technologies for the Motor Impaired" is the most recent book from Dinesh Kumar and Sridhar Arjunan that examines both the technical and social aspects of Human-Computer Interface (HCI). 

This book introduces to the concept of HCI, identifies and describes the fundamentals associated with a specific technology of HCI, and provides examples for each. It is presented with the following chapters:

• Human-computer interface: Mechanical sensors;
• Brain-computer interface based on thought waves and Evoked potentials-based;
• Myoelectric-based hand gesture recognition for HCI;
• Video-based hand movment and electrooculography for HCI;
• Video-based eye tracking and speech for controlling computers;
• Lip movment for humam-computer interface.

If you want to take a look inside press here.

Fundamentals in Neuroscience - A Deep Look at the Brain, BCI and EEG

The School of Health Sciences offers advanced training courses in medicine, health sciences and medical education. The fundamentals of neuroscience are one of them where it is possible to learn and understand better several subjects related with BCI/EEG. 

Some of the goals are to describe the anatomical and functional relations between major brain areas, to identify the cell types of the nervous system and also to describe the physical and functional interactions between them and explain their role in the nervous system.

The 15 days program, for graduate students and postdocs, include some labs-on sessions and is focused on various subjects such as:

• Brain Anatomy and Nervous impulse;
• Neurotransmission and neurotransmitters;
• Learning, Memory and Sensory Systems;
• Visual, Auditive and Olfactive Systems;
• Brain-machine interface and neurorehabilitation;
• Electrophysiological studies.

For more informations about this course and the ICVS press here.

Brain Driver - Control a Car using Your Mind

AutoNOMOS Labs is a German company that is working on a modular system for the operation of autonomous or semi-autonomous cars. 

Using AutoNOMOS, it is be possible to detect impending dangers on roads, highways, and crossings at an early stage and accidents can be prevented. Once the technology is ready, it will be introduced at first on private property and, finally, in public traffic. The project will make a significant contribution to the development of accident-free, efficient, and environmentally friendly mobility.

In the following video we can see the use of the device EPOC from the Emotiv company. By reading the brain electrical signals recorded at the level of the scalp (EEG) it is possible to identify patterns of behavior. In this particular case driver intentions are identified to turn left, turn right and also accelerate or brake. 

At this moment tests are being carried out on a large place as the airport runway. In my understanding this "car technology" will need time to grow up until a complete solution can be used in a real scenario within our roads.
Not advancing a date in concrete, one day will be possible to think something like: "Stop here and park on the right side!" :-)

BrainiHack Event

In March 2015 it took place in Israel the Brainihack event. Although it has taken place for some time ago it have some interested information to publish related to Brain-Computer Interfaces.

"From virtual reality games, through automatic panic alerts to mind-based dating apps, we’ve seen many incredible apps built using some of the cutting edge devices in the field: InteraXon’s Muse, OpenBCI, Neuroelectrics’ Enobio and the not-yet published Neurosteer."

Some interesting projects submited in this event:

• Emochat – An emotion-enriched chat experience that aims to bridge the emotional divide in a chat vs. real life;
• BlueGSD – A labyrinth game (maze ball) using SSVEP;
• Deja-View – A externally-created automatic memory using virtual reality. 

There are also other projects included as Right Path, Hive Mind, Brainifeed or Shoni.

In my opinion this type of meeting is very important to share knowledge and experience providing the openness to new ideas. More information here.

Performance Brain Training with VERSUS

One more BCI solution is on the market! It's called VERSUS and it was made to be easily used by anyone training the brain to improve your concentration.

Versus provides performance brain training through a brain sensing headset and app. It goes beyond cognitive brain games and promotes high-performance brain function increasing impulse control, regulate emotions, stay focused, and sleep better.

The great advantages explored and presented by this system are related to the brain's ability to improve, the measuring mental performance, the strengthening the optimal brain state and the training into practice that constantly pushes the brain activity into a stronger position.

I confess I am a little apprehensive about the results obtained with this commercial solution but nothing better than reading the published case studies as Kerri Walsh Jennings, Carlos Quentin or UCLA Golf and take your conclusions.

Introduction To Modern Brain-Computer Interface Design - BCIlab

The Swartz Center for Computational NeuroScience (SCCN) as provided an online course on Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) design with a focus on modern methods. Christian Kothe is the video speaker and the course includes basics of EEG, BCI, signal processing, machine learning, and also contains tutorials on using BCILAB and the lab streaming layer software.

It is divided in three parts with some exercice materials in the end:

• Part I: Introduction to BCI Design
• Part II: The BCILAB Toolbox
• Part III: Handling Complex Brain Processes
• Exercise Materials

To access the video course press here.

World BCI Market - Opportunities and Forecasts, 2013 - 2020

Would you like to know the trends and investment in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) Market until 2020? According to the report by Allied Market Research entitled, "Global Brain Computer Interface (BCI) Market - Size, Industry Analysis, Trends, Opportunities, Growth and Forecast, 2013-2020", this market is expected to reach $1.460.000.000 until 2020. 

A global rise in the count of brain disorders along with the increasing government funding to improve healthcare systems, would supplement the growth of this market. The non-invasive BCI technology accounted for about 85% of the total BCI market revenue in 2013, and demonstrate a steady growth in future, thus, eliminating the need to perform surgeries and implant BCI devices.

This study analysis the global BCI market which is expected an imminent investment. It also present the market segmentation by type, application and geography. Read the free report created by Allied Market Research.

NeuroTechMTL - Neurotech Hackers Network

NeuroTechX is a bottom-up initiative to create an international neurotech hackers network. This community aim to provide key resources and learning opportunities contributing "to better understanding and to improving who we are".

A group of 9 people promote neurotechnology fields organizing events such as meetups, hackathons and workshops:

• Connect with researchers, professionals, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts;
• Heads up to new challenges, great ideas and rewards;
• Get bottom-up knowledge from the source to get your skill to a new level.

This site has also the BCI Montreal Blog with some important information.

Neuroplasticity using a Bicycle

Here is an excellent example of neuroplasticity where the brain reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. In this funny and simple experience the wheel of the bicycle was changed, reversing the direction of intention. The instantaneous result was the expected: Falls to the ground! 

But the most interesting is how our brain, after some days or weeks, is able to adapt to this new reality. Especially if you are a child! :-)

Watch this unmissable video!

For more information about BCI/EEG 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!

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.

Annual BCI Award 2015 - 10 Projects nominated

BCI Award 2015 announced the 10 projects that have been nominated from the submissions received:

1. An ECoG-Based BCI on Auditory Attention to Natural Speech; 
2. Easy riders: BCI for enhancing driving experience; 
3. Sensorimotor Modulation Assessment and BCI Training with Auditory feedback; 
4. Brain-to-Text: Towards continuous speech as a paradigm for BCI; 
5. De-novo experience-based learning in rats interfaced with a "cerebellar chip"; 
6. Individual Finger Control of the Modular Prosthetic Limb; 
7. Restoration for the volitional motor function via an artificial neural connection; 
8. BCI Controlling Cyborg: A Functional Brain-to-Brain Interface between Human and Cockroach; 
9. A BCI to combat musculoskeletal pain; 
10. Increasing the useful lifespan of intracortical BCIs. 

For more information press here.

Call for Workshops - 6th International BCI

I give knowledge of an email I received from Jane Huggins, PhD, BCI Meeting Chair, about the 6^th International BCI Meeting calling for workshops.  

Up to 15 workshops will be held in each time slot and will be devoted to 3 hour workshops that will run concurrently. Each workshop will engage 10-40 participants and focus on a specific topic. Workshops can combine invited talks, targeted discussions, demonstrations, hands-on exercises and/or sharply focused debates as the leaders see fit. Workshop organization should include the participation of senior researchers to ensure proper coverage of the topic.

Researchers and/or practitioners wishing to organize workshops should submit an informal 5-line workshop description to workshops@meetings.bcisociety.org for pre-acceptance. These short descriptions will be screened to minimize topic overlaps and to join groups together.  

Main proposals should include:

• Workshop title
• Leader(s) Name(s) and Email(s) and short Bio(s)
• Description of the workshop topic and goals
• Detailed workshop timetable

Important dates deadlines:

• Proposal Pre-Submission: November 1 2015 
• Main Proposal Submission: December 1 2015

OpenBCI - 32 bit board kit

OpenBCI is a group of  researchers, engineers, scientists, designers, etc, that "shares a passion for harnessing the electrical signals of the human brain and body to further understand and expand who we are". 

OpenBCI stands for open-source brain-computer interface (BCI). with an hardware device that has a bio-sensing microcontroller that can sample electrical brain activity (EEG), muscle activity (EMG), heart rate (EKG).

The price of the new 32-bit Board Kit (chipKIT™-compatible) version is about $449,99. More infomation can be obtained in his forum.

BCI Events 2015 / 2016

Interest in BCIs is growing both by the scientific community, medical and general public. An example of this is the growing number of solutions, published articles and events related to this area.

Here's the list for the next world events described by name, local and date:

• Cybathlon 2016 – Switzerland, October 2016 
• International BCI Meeting 2016 – USA, May 2016 
• IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence – Canada, July 2016 
• 4th International Winter Conference on BCI – Korea, February 2016 
• German-Japanese workshop on Adaptive BCI - Japan, October 2015 
• International Conference on Systems and Cybernetics - China, October 2015 
• IEEE SMC 2015 5th Workshop on BMI Systems - China, October 2015 
• 4th International Workshop on Symbiotic Interaction – Germany, October 2015 
• 7th Computer Science & Electronic Eng. Conference – UK, September 2015 
• 6th International Conference on Affective Computing – China, September 2015 
• 4th Workshop on Affective Brain-Computer Interaction – China, September 2015 
• 2015 Summer School on Neurorehabilitation – Spain, September 2015

This list was obtained from BNCI Horizon 2020.

Faculty positions in Biomedical Engineering / BCI

The University of California at Davis has positions available in Brain-Computer Interfaces area. 

The research program of a successful candidate is expected to integrate campus strengths in engineering, neurosciences, and medicine. Candidates interested in helping lead efforts to integrate these disciplines on the UC Davis campus, possibly as part of a new Center for Neuroengineering & Medicine, are encouraged to apply. The current positions are part of a cluster of hires that will also include an associated position in neurobiology/motor control.

For more information press here.

International Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Meeting 2016

The new BCI meeting is schedule for May 30, 2016 in California, USA. 

Main objectives of this event:

1. Bringing together and fostering productive interactions (...);
2. Presenting a comprehensive review of the current state of BCI research;
3. Addressing in focused workshops (...) for continued progress in BCI research;
4. Promoting the education and development of new researchers (...);
5. Maximizing the (...) meeting impact through publication by the BCI Journal (...);
6. Defining member benefits and Society-led projects for the newly formed BCI Society. 

6. 
   

This meeting will bring together scientists, engineers, and clinicians involved in BCI research and clinical use and will contribute greatly to BCI development.

For more informations press here.

Neuroanatomy - Human Brain

A new online application HNBS allows you to identify the various areas of the human brain just clicking the interest point.

The module interface is meant to mimic a radiology workstation with adjacent image scrolling via arrow keys and or mouse wheel button. Hover the cursor over a structure of interest; if active, its name will appear underneath the image. Clicking the mouse button in an active area will synchronize and cross reference all image planes.  To instantly navigate in all image planes move the mouse while holding down the mouse button.

Try it now pressing here.

BCI job (PhD position) at Université de Genève

The Swiss Center for Affective Sciences and Computer Vision and Multimedia Laboratory (CVML) are looking for a candidate with a solid background in signal processing for a fully-funded PhD position at the computer science department, University of Geneva. 

The research focuses on analyzing the interactions between facial expressions and EEG signals with the aim of reducing unwanted interferences and recognizing emotions. Research will involve recording and analyzing EEG signals and facial expressions using Bayesian estimation methods.

Required qualifications

• An MSc in a field related to one or more of the following: electrical engineering, computer science, applied mathematics;
• Strong knowledge of signal processing and statistics;
• Strong programming skills in Matlab or Python;
• Interest in performing experiments with humans including recording multimodal sensorial data from volunteer participants;
• Ability to communicate and report research results in English.

Salary 

• CHF52’000/year, +/- 4.000€/month, before tax and social charges

Starting date 

• Preferably by January 2016

For more informations press  here.

FlexCtrl - A new EEG / BCI capture device

A new EEG capture device with 32-channel headset was announced.  This project was found as a BCI crowdfunding campaign in Indiegogo.

Their web page is still under constrution and in my opinion this project does not respond to some fundamental questions: 

• What kind of dry sensors are used?
• How does it react with long hair?
• When the SDK will be available?

Let's wait for the answers...!

Play computer games without using your hands or feet

New BCI solutions are increasingly common in laboratories and research institutes. One such example is the project developed by Christoph Hintermüller and his team from g.tec Guger Technologies. He says: “We have developed so called brain-computer interfaces which allow the user to control different devices and programmes without hands, by means of the user’s thoughts.”

This is one more approach to play a computer game hands-free. Using SSVEP the user selects the commands by simply looking at the blinking arrows on the screen. The frequency of the flashing is reproduced in the brain cortex and read by the electrodes at occipital area.

Also Arnau Manzanal of the research and development department says: "As soon as we have understood the electroencephalography patterns produced by the groups of neurons in the brain, we can map the brain activity to any commands for any device, like a television or a motorised system for the home".

More information about this article can be found here.

Structural change of brain cells caused by depression

The Champalimaud Foundation has just acquired a ultra-high field scanner that can deliver results 10x above the conventional MRI. It can be used in several studies of diseases such as multiple sclerosis or depression.

“In depressed patients, cells change structure, change shape and size. With the method that we have been developing in this lab, it could become possible to study these processes and, hopefully, to see these changes as they occur. Potentially in the future it will be useful for clinicians to select treatments and better diagnosis depression.”

This type of equipment can provide new answers on how the human brain works. Watch the video report here.

The future of BCI - From the state of the art to Vision

The BNCI Horizon 2020 Consortium have just released the final version of the roadmap for the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

• Who should read this roadmap?
• Aim and Executive summary
• What is a BCI and Vision for 2025
• Use case scenarios
• Unlocking the locked-in and NeuroTutor
• BCI-controlled neuroprosthesis
• Hybrid BCI-driven FES for stroke rehabilitation
• Research tool for cognitive neuroscience
• Horizon 2020 and the place for BCIs
• BCI market, stakeholders and Ethics
• General recommendations
• Appendix
• Research, Industry and End Users
• Use cases, focus groups and BCI Society
• Consortium

Vision for 2025

"In 2025, a wide array of applications will use brain signals as an important source of information. We will see routine applications in professional context, personal health monitoring, and medical treatment. We envision a future where humans and information technology are seamlessly and intuitively connected by integrating various biosignals, particularly brain activity. People will be supported in choosing the best time for making difficult and important decisions. People working in safety-relevant fields will be capable of anticipating fatigue, and authorities may find good (evidence-based) reasons to incorporate such applications in regulations. (...)"

The following graph shows the potential that the BCI has for the next two decades:

It's also possible to download the summarized roadmapping activities. For more informations visit bnci-horizon-2020.eu