Abstract
Patients suffering from life-changing disability due to Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) increasingly benefit from assistive robotics technology. The field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has started to develop mature assistive applications for those patients. Nonetheless, noninvasive BCIs still lack accurate control of external devices along several degrees of freedom (DoFs). Unobtrusiveness, portability, and simplicity should not be sacrificed in favor of complex performance and user acceptance should be a key aim among future technological directions. In our study 10 subjects with SCI (one complete) and 10 healthy controls were recruited. In a single session they operated two anthropomorphic 8-DoF robotic arms via wireless commercial BCI, using kinesthetic motor imagery to perform 32 different upper extremity movements. Training skill and BCI control performance were analyzed with regard to demographics, neurological condition, independence, imagery capacity, psychometric evaluation, and user perception. Healthy controls, SCI subgroup with positive neurological outcome, and SCI subgroup with cervical injuries performed better in BCI control. User perception of the robot did not differ between SCI and healthy groups. SCI subgroup with negative outcome rated Anthropomorphism higher. Multi-DoF robotics control is possible by patients through commercial wireless BCI. Multiple sessions and tailored BCI algorithms are needed to improve performance.
Highlights
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is a potentially life-changing condition, causing permanent disability, compromising the victim’s physical and psychological well-being and impacting their close environment as well
In our previous work we have presented our progress towards developing 8-DoF anthropomorphic robotic arms, controlled by wireless off-the-shelf Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), for Assistive Technologies (AT) and rehabilitation applications [12]
We have accounted for development of the robotic arms and electronics, for implementation of the BCI control module, and we have presented pilot experimental applications of the Brain-Robot Interface (BRI) on healthy and disabled individuals [29, 30]
Summary
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is a potentially life-changing condition, causing permanent disability, compromising the victim’s physical and psychological well-being and impacting their close environment as well. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are rapidly developing into a field-changing technology for those patients, replacing motor functions [1, 2] but even promising to alter the long-term outcome of the condition [3, 4]. Wireless invasive (implantable) neural recording is an important development [5, 6], especially considering that SCI has become the research target of several assistive technologies [7] including functional electrical stimulation [8] and robotics for neurorehabilitation [9]. Since the EEG signal measured at the scalp is the superposition of all electrical signals, including those generated by the cortex, discriminating brain activity from artifacts and noise can be technically difficult
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