In the recent past, many organizations and people have substituted face-to-face meetings with videoconferences. Among others, tools like Zoom, Teams, and Webex have become the "new normal" of human social interaction in many domains (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrain activation during left- and right-hand motor imagery is a popular feature used for brain-computer interfaces. However, most studies so far have only considered right-handed participants in their experiments. This study aimed to investigate how handedness influences brain activation during the processes of imagining and executing simple hand movements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor their ease of accessibility and low cost, current Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) used to detect subjective emotional and affective states rely largely on electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. Public datasets are available for researchers to design models for affect detection from EEG. However, few designs focus on optimally exploiting the nature of the stimulus elicitation to improve accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the past years motor imagery (MI) turned out to be also an innovative and effective tool for motor learning and improvement of sports performance. Whereas many studies investigating sports MI focusing on upper or lower limbs involvement, knowledge about involved neural structures during whole-body movements is still limited. In the present study we investigated brain activity of climbers during a kinesthetic motor imagery (KMI) climbing task with different difficulties by means of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvantageous effects of biological motion (BM) detection, a low-perceptual mechanism that allows the rapid recognition and understanding of spatiotemporal characteristics of movement salient kinematics information, can be amplified when combined with motor imagery (MI), i.e., the mental simulation of motor acts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe human brain functional lateralization has been widely studied over the past decades, and neuroimaging studies have shown how activation of motor areas during hand movement execution (ME) is different according to hand dominance. Nevertheless, there is no research directly investigating the effects of the participant's handedness in a motor imagery (MI) and ME task in both right and left-handed individuals at the cortical and subcortical level. Twenty-six right-handed and 25 left-handed participants were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging during the imagination and execution of repetitive self-paced movements of squeezing a ball with their dominant, non-dominant, and both hands.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe goal of this study was to implement a Riemannian geometry (RG)-based algorithm to detect high mental workload (MWL) and mental fatigue (MF) using task-induced electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In order to elicit high MWL and MF, the participants performed a cognitively demanding task in the form of the letter -back task. We analyzed the time-varying characteristics of the EEG band power (BP) features in the theta and alpha frequency band at different task conditions and cortical areas by employing a RG-based framework.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this work was to re-evaluate electrophysiological data from a previous study on motor imagery (MI) with a special focus on observed inter- and intra-individual differences. More concretely, we investigated event-related desynchronization/synchronization patterns during sports MI (playing tennis) compared with simple MI (squeezing a ball) and discovered high variability across participants. Thirty healthy volunteers were divided in two groups; the experimental group (EG) performed a physical exercise between two imagery sessions, and the control group (CG) watched a landscape movie without physical activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) measures the functional activity of the cerebral cortex. The concentration changes of oxygenated (oxy-Hb) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (deoxy-Hb) can be detected and associated with activation of the cortex in the investigated area (neurovascular coupling). Recorded signals of hemodynamic responses may contain influences from physiological signals (systemic influences, physiological artifacts) which do not originate from the cerebral cortex activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMotor imagery is often used inducing changes in electroencephalographic (EEG) signals for imagery-based brain-computer interfacing (BCI). A BCI is a device translating brain signals into control signals providing severely motor-impaired persons with an additional, non-muscular channel for communication and control. In the last years, there is increasing interest using BCIs also for healthy people in terms of enhancement or gaming.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe activation of different brain areas during kinaesthetic and visual motor imagery has been extensively studied, whereas little is known about affective motor imagery, i.e. the imagery of pleasant/unpleasant movements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImagining a complex action requires not only motor-related processing but also visuo-spatial imagery. In the current study, we examined visuo-spatial complexity and action affordances in motor imagery (MI). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neural activity in MI of reach-to-grasp movements of the right hand in five conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an emerging technique for the assessment of functional activity of the cerebral cortex. Recently fNIRS was also envisaged as a novel neuroimaging approach for measuring the auditory cortex activity in the field of in auditory diagnostics. This study aimed to investigate differences in brain activity related to spatially presented sounds with different intensities in 10 subjects by means of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe P300 event-related potential is a well-known pattern in the electroencephalogram (EEG). This kind of brain signal is used for many different brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined force related hemodynamic changes during the performance of a motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) task by means of multichannel functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The hemodynamic responses of fourteen healthy participants were measured while they performed a hand grip execution or imagery task with low and high grip forces. We found an overall higher increase of [oxy-Hb] concentration changes during ME for both grip forces but with a delayed peak maximum for the lower grip force.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne important aspect in non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) research is to acquire the electroencephalogram (EEG) in a proper way. From an end-user perspective, it means with maximum comfort and without any extra inconveniences (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
August 2015
Providing brain-computer interface (BCI) users engaging applications should be one of the main targets in BCI research. A painting application, a web browser and other applications can already be controlled via BCI. Another engaging application would be a music composer for self-expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe novel BackHome system offers individuals with disabilities a range of useful services available via brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), to help restore their independence. This is the time such technology is ready to be deployed in the real world, that is, at the target end users' home. This has been achieved by the development of practical electrodes, easy to use software, and delivering telemonitoring and home support capabilities which have been conceived, implemented, and tested within a user-centred design approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) based on event-related potentials (ERP) were proven to be a reliable synchronous communication method. For everyday life situations, however, this synchronous mode is impractical because the system will deliver a selection even if the user is not paying attention to the stimulation. So far, research into attention-aware visual ERP-BCIs (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
July 2016
Brain-computer interface (BCI) users can control very complex applications such as multimedia players or even web browsers. Therefore, different biosignal acquisition systems are available to noninvasively measure the electrical activity of the brain, the electroencephalogram (EEG). To make BCIs more practical, hardware and software are nowadays designed more user centered and user friendly.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Access to the world wide web and multimedia content is an important aspect of life. We present a web browser and a multimedia user interface adapted for control with a brain-computer interface (BCI) which can be used by severely motor impaired persons.
Methods: The web browser dynamically determines the most efficient P300 BCI matrix size to select the links on the current website.
The study aimed at revealing electrophysiological indicators of mental workload and fatigue during prolonged usage of a P300 brain-computer interface (BCI). Mental workload was experimentally manipulated with dichotic listening tasks. Medium and high workload conditions alternated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMotor imagery (MI) is a commonly used paradigm for the study of motor learning or cognitive aspects of action control. The rationale for using MI training to promote the relearning of motor function arises from research on the functional correlates that MI shares with the execution of physical movements. While most of the previous studies investigating MI were based on simple movements in the present study a more attractive mental practice was used to investigate cortical activation during MI.
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