Mindreach - A Portuguese BCI Startup Company

MindReach is a company created by the neuroscientist Rui Costa dedicated to BCI/EEG research. As already mentioned in previous posts, Mindreach is one more company that contributes to the development of an interface that over time will radically change the way we deal with electronic devices.

Mindreach offers an end-to-end product that uses an electroencephalography (EEG) headset coupled with a dedicated training software platform allowing users to learn to directly control activity in pre-frontal cortex, and as a first approach correct abnormal brain patterns, as is the case of Attention deficit hyperactivity disoder (ADHD) and other conditions. Our solution can be expanded and integrated with a wide range of on-the-market effector devices, such as other controllers, neuro-rehabilitation equipment and neuro-prosthetics.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

A BCI-based Environmental Control System for Patients with Severe Spinal Cord Injuries

Rui Zhang, Qihong Wang and Kai Li present a BCI-based environmental control system that integrates household electrical appliances, a nursing bed, and an intelligent wheelchair with automated navigation function. Synchronous and asynchronous control modes are employed in different situations to provide more natural and practical control. Specifically, the asynchronous mode, which can infer from the ongoing EEG whether the user intends to execute his/her control through the BCI, is for switching the environmental control system on or off or for selecting a device (e.g., a TV) to control. 

Furthermore, a verification mechanism and several pseudo-keys are introduced into our paradigm to effectively reduce false operations in the asynchronous mode. Once a device is switched on, the synchronous mode, generally with a higher BCI detection performance of accuracy and speed than the asynchronous mode, is used for function selection, such as channel selection for a TV. Two experiments involving six paralyzed patients with severe spinal cord injuries (SCIs) were separately carried out in a nursing bed and a wheelchair. Experimental results indicated that all the SCI patients could operate the household electrical appliances, the nursing bed and the intelligent wheelchair by using the BCI with satisfactory. The proposed environmental control system can thus be used to assist severely paralyzed people with SCIs in their daily life and improve their self-care abilities.

For more informaton about BCI/EGG press here.

NeuroFuse - a Brain Miracle Pills?

Neurofuse seems to have a brain miracle effect just in a few minutes. Some testimonials report the  "amazing" intense focus, mental clarity and cognitive precision results. True or false? We will wait for the answers.

Enhance Mind IQ, which has no recorded side effects in any clinical trials, was soon the target of critics who claimed it was too powerful to be sold without a prescription. Other people in academic circles insisted that Enhance Mind IQ provided an artificial edge for its users and was unfair to those who weren’t taking it. This led to it being banned from quiz shows and at many top universities as well. 

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Graz BCI Conference 2017

Three workshops will occur during Graz BCI Conference 2017:

• Cloud-based BCIs: challenges and opportunities of home-use systems for big data collection;
• Facilitators and barriers of using mobile EEG: a workshop using the extreme test case of BCIs for space flights;
• Passive BCI, Lab Streaming Layer, and Neuroadaptive Technology.

Cloud-based BCIs: challenges and opportunities of home-use systems for big data collection

Bringing brain-computer interfaces from the lab environment into the homes of patients and consumers requires three components: 

1. Cloud-based realtime signal processing and machine learning that generalises across large datasets, 
2. Low-cost, wireless EEG hardware with sufficient signal quality for scientific and clinical purposes, 
3. User-friendly, cross-platform software applications to make the system directly accessible to endusers. 

Tackling this challenge may be the key to enabling robust communication and control for patients, and breaking the limitations of current research in terms of sample size and longitudinal data. With this workshop we aim to bring experts from both inside and outside the BCI community together to inspire future work that will allow us to overcome existing boundaries, both in research and in clinical practice.

Facilitators and barriers of using mobile EEG: a workshop using the extreme test case of BCIs for space flights

Since the advent of mobile EEG with which the subject is no longer constrained by a lab environment, but can be tested in a realistic environment, an increasing number of application areas are opening up for investigation. For example, mobile EEG offers new research opportunities in Sports and Movement Science, Entertainment, Neuromarketing and more fundamental Cognitive Neuroscience. However, mobile EEG also confronts us with new technical and experimental challenges. During our workshop we aim to start a constructive multidisciplinary technology assessment to identify the main barriers and facilitators of mobile EEG. To facilitate the discussion, we focus on the extreme use scenario of Brain-Computer Interface research for space flights. Thus, speakers will first present their scientific findings, experience and challenges with mobile EEG. Then, we narrow the discussion to the extreme use scenario of BCI for space flights, which prepares workshop participants for a final group discussion.

Passive BCI, Lab Streaming Layer, and Neuroadaptive Technology

This workshop is aimed at participants interested in applications of BCI technology in Human‐Computer Interaction for users without disabilities. It is intended to represent the Society for Neuroadaptive Technology (SNAT) and to support the communication between this society and BCI researchers. Dr. Thorsten O. Zander will present and discuss the aims of passive BCI research, Neuroadaptive Technology and modern Human‐Computer Interaction. This part represents a forum to identify synergies and develop new ideas. Dr. David Medine and Ratko Petrovic, will present technological developments for passive and hybrid BCIs. Dr. Medine will present the Lab Streaming Layer (LSL), an open‐source software project for synchronized, multi‐modal data streaming and recording. Mr. Petrovic will present recent hardware developments compatible with LSL. The third part is a hands‐on demonstration with Neuroadaptive Technologies. In several groups,participants use an application combining passive BCI, gaze control and dry electrodes.

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.

Studying the Human Cerebral Cortex with Cortical Explorer

Cortical Viewer is a web-based, interactive, 3D viewer for exploring the brain cortex developed at Imperial College.

The viewer allows users to interactively explore the HCP’s Multi-modal Parcellation. Clicking on different regions brings up access to a wealth of meta-data summarising directly the extensive neuroanatomical supplementary results. ‘Sections’ refers to which broad neuroanatomical sections of the brain the region belongs to, where these sections reference how the brain was subdivided up during manual annotation.

The explorer offers several different schemes for viewing the data, for example the regions connected (or in a common section) to the primary motor cortex can be viewed either by exploding (moving) the areas, or recolouring (to fade out unrelated regions).

For more information about BCI/EEG press here.