Decoding Electroencephalography Underlying Natural Grasp Tasks across Multiple Dimensions

Abstract

Individuals suffering from motor dysfunction due to various diseases often face challenges in performing essential activities such as grasping objects using their upper limbs, eating, writing, and more. This limitation significantly impacts their ability to live independently. Brain–computer interfaces offer a promising solution, enabling them to interact with the external environment in a meaningful way. This exploration focused on decoding the electroencephalography of natural grasp tasks across three dimensions: movement-related cortical potentials, event-related desynchronization/synchronization, and brain functional connectivity, aiming to provide assistance for the development of intelligent assistive devices controlled by electroencephalography signals generated during natural movements. Furthermore, electrode selection was conducted using global coupling strength, and a random forest classification model was employed to decode three types of natural grasp tasks (palmar grasp, lateral grasp, and rest state). The results indicated that a noteworthy lateralization phenomenon in brain activity emerged, which is closely associated with the right or left of the executive hand. The reorganization of the frontal region is closely associated with external visual stimuli and the central and parietal regions play a crucial role in the process of motor execution. An overall average classification accuracy of 80.3% was achieved in a natural grasp task involving eight subjects.