Research projects

Last Updated on Saturday, 31 December 2011 16:26 Written by Brendan Allison Wednesday, 28 April 2010 07:51

This section contains information about other research projects that relate to BCIs and BNCIs. We do not mean individual studies, but larger-scale, funded research projects lasting at least two years with several different studies or publications. Please feel free to add your project, logo, updated text, or other information below.

Please see our roadmap or look under "Our Project" to learn more about Future BNCI or other projects in our cluster (such as Tremor, Brain, Tobi, BrainAble, Decoder, Mundus, Better, Asterics, Mindwalker).

HIVE

[This material was submitted by Starlab, the leader of HIVE and a partner in Future BNCI].

In the next 50 years we will witness the coming of age of technologies for fluent brain-computer and computer-mediated brain-to-brain interaction. While recent research has delivered important breakthroughs in brain-to-computer transmission, little has been achieved in the other direction – computer-controlled brain stimulation. HIVE is a FET Open FP7 EU project (2008-2012). Our goal is to research stimulation paradigms to design, develop and test a new generation of more powerful and controllable non-invasive brain stimulation technologies. HIVE will develop improved electrical current distribution and multi-scale neuron-current interaction models and carry out stimulation experiments using tDCS, TMS, EEG, and fMRI in different scenarios, and based on these develop multisite transcranial current stimulation technologies implementing real time EEG monitoring and feedback. HIVE will also explore high-level communication using stimulation, stimulation during different states of consciousness, stimulation and therapy, as well as "sense synthesis," that is, the construction of new perceptions deriving from sensors interacting directly with brains through stimulation systems - all with the goal of probing the limits of non-invasive computer-to-brain interfaces.

Link to the project website: http://www.hive-eu.org/

The website for the upcoming 1-day workshop: http://www.hive-eu.org/hive2010/home

Call for Abstracts - May 1st: http://www.hive-eu.org/hive2010/call_for_papers

HIVE2010

BrainGain

[This material was submitted by U Twetne, a partner in BrainGain and in Future BNCI.]

BrainGain is a Dutch research consortium consisting of researchers, industry and potential users of Brain-Computer and Computer-Brain interfaces. The program started in September 2007 and is funded by SmartMix, a Dutch initiative to support applied research. BrainGain is researching possibilities of applications for both ill and healthy users, and aims to eventually manufacture off-the-shelf products making use of their research results.

Website:
http://www.braingain.nu

BrainGainheader_logo

BrainGate

[The text below was copied from the "About Us" section of the BrainGate web page, which is referenced below.]

The BrainGate research team includes leading neurologists, neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, neurosurgeons, mathematicians, and other researchers – all focused on developing technologies to restore the communication, mobility, and independence of people with neurologic disease, injury, or limb loss. This diverse and collaborative team creates and tests the devices that are ushering in a new era of transformative neurotechnologies. Using a baby aspirin-sized array of electrodes implanted into the brain, early research from the BrainGate team has shown that the neural signals associated with the intent to move a limb can be “decoded” by a computer in real-time and used to operate external devices. This investigational system, called BrainGate (Caution: Investigational Device. Limited by Federal Law to Investigational Use.) has allowed people with spinal cord injury, brainstem stroke, and ALS to control a computer cursor simply by thinking about the movement of their own paralyzed hand.

Current research is focused not only on improving the ability to operate a computer, but also on providing people with ALS, spinal cord injury, and stroke with reliable, constant control over their environment. The technology may ultimately give “natural” control over advanced prosthetic limbs, provide people with paralysis easy control over powerful assistive movement and communication devices, and, eventually, enable naturally-controlled movements of paralyzed limbs. In addition, we developing a new generation of wireless medical technologies that will be able to record and monitor neural activity to assist in the diagnosis and management of neurologic disease.

Website:
http://www.braingate2.org

SM4ALL

[The text and logo below were copied from the "Home" section of the SM4ALL web page, which is referenced below.]

The SM4ALL project will investigate an innovative middleware platform for inter-working of smart embedded services in immersive and person-centric environments, through the use of composability and semantic techniques for dynamic service reconfiguration. By leveraging on P2P technologies, the platform is inherently scalable and able to resist to devices’ churn and failures, while preserving the privacy of its human users as well as the security of the whole environment. This is applied to the challenging scenario of private houses and home-care assistance in presence of users with different abilities and needs (e.g., young able bodied, aged and disabled).

The specific composition of the Consortium, consisting of top-class universities and research centers (UOR, TUW, RUG, KTH and FOI), of user partners specialized in domotics and home-care assistance (FSL and THFL) and a SME specialized in specific brain-computer interfaces (GTEC), and of leader companies in the embedded sector (TID and ED) guarantees a widespread dissemination and exploitation of the project results, coupled with a privileged position inside ARTEMIS and ARTEMISIA (due to the presence of UOR, TUW and ED in such bodies).

Embedded systems are specialised computers used in larger systems or machines to control equipments such as automobiles, home appliances, communication, control and office machines. Such pervasivity is particularly evident in immersive realities, i.e., scenarios in which invisible embedded systems need to continuosly interact with human users, in order to provide continuous sensed information and to react to service requests from the users themselves.

Website:
http://www.sm4all‐project.eu

NeuroMath

[The text and logos below were copied from the main NeuroMath web page, which is referenced below.]

This is the web site of COST Action BM0601: Advanced Methods For The Estimation Of Human Brain Activity And Connectivity.
COST

The main objective of the NEUROMATH Action is to increase the knowledge on the mathematical methods able to estimate the cortical activity and connectivity in the human brain from non invasive neuroelectric and hemodynamic measurements. NEUROMATH is a COST Action in which scientists are called to harmonize their computational tools in order to offer a comprehensive approach to the problem of the estimation of brain activity and connectivity for sensory and cognitive behavioural tasks. NEUROMATH also offers to the young COST neuroscientists, mathematicians, physics, and engineers a comprehensive review of such methods as well as regular training courses and associated didactic material on this topic. The NEUROMATH Action includes selected laboratories from the following COST countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

On the basis of national estimates provided by the representatives of these 14 countries, the economic dimension of the activities to be carried out under the Action has been estimated in 91 person/year.

Website:

http://www.neuromath.eu/

Brainmuri: Brain-Based Communication and Orientation

[This information is from the "Welcome" and "Overview" section of the Brainmuri home page, after discussion with the project's leader, Prof. Dr. Gerwin Schalk.]

This US-Army funded project will develop understanding and technologies that will eventually lead to a non-invasive brain-machine interface usable in humans that can translate directional orientation into machine-readable form. The goal is to design brain-based augmentation systems that allow people to respond to and control their environment rapidly and accurately.

Our work toward a brain-machine interface that can translate directional orientation into machine-readable form is based on three themes (click on the links for more info):

This multi-site project involves faculty at several sites: Albany Medical Center/Wadsworth Center (Albany, New York), Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri), and New York University (New York, New York)

Website:

http://brainmuri.org/

Muri: Synthetic telepathy

[This information is from the front page of this project.]

The project involves basic research needed to make possible a brain-computer interface for decoding thought and communicating it to an intended target. Applications are to situations in which it is either impossible or inappropriate to communicate using visual means or by audible speech; the long-term aim is to provide a significant advance in Army communication capabilities in such situations. Non-invasive brain-imaging technologies like electroencephalography (EEG) offer a potential way for dispersed team members to communicate their thoughts. A Soldier thinks a message to be transmitted. A system for automatic imagined speech recognition decodes EEG recordings of brain activity during the thought message. A second system infers simultaneously the intended target of the communication from EEG signals. Message and target information are then combined to communicate the message as intended.

Website:

http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/