Objective: To assess the reliability and usefulness of an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) for patients with advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who used it independently at home for up to 18 months.
Methods: Of 42 patients consented, 39 (93%) met the study criteria, and 37 (88%) were assessed for use of the Wadsworth BCI. Nine (21%) could not use the BCI. Of the other 28, 27 (men, age 28-79 years) (64%) had the BCI placed in their homes, and they and their caregivers were trained to use it. Use data were collected by Internet. Periodic visits evaluated BCI benefit and burden and quality of life.
Results: Over subsequent months, 12 (29% of the original 42) left the study because of death or rapid disease progression and 6 (14%) left because of decreased interest. Fourteen (33%) completed training and used the BCI independently, mainly for communication. Technical problems were rare. Patient and caregiver ratings indicated that BCI benefit exceeded burden. Quality of life remained stable. Of those not lost to the disease, half completed the study; all but 1 patient kept the BCI for further use.
Conclusion: The Wadsworth BCI home system can function reliably and usefully when operated by patients in their homes. BCIs that support communication are at present most suitable for people who are severely disabled but are otherwise in stable health. Improvements in BCI convenience and performance, including some now underway, should increase the number of people who find them useful and the extent to which they are used.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000005812 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
Department of Sport Studies, Faculty of Education Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
Introduction: Mental fatigue, a psychobiological state induced by prolonged and sustained cognitive tasks, impairs both cognitive and physical performance. Several studies have investigated strategies to counteract mental fatigue. However, potential health risks and contextual restrictions often limit these strategies, which hinder their practical application.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
Steady-State Visually Evoked Potential (SSVEP) signals can be decoded by either a traditional machine learning algorithm or a deep learning network. Combining the two methods is expected to enhance the performance of an SSVEP-based brain-computer interface (BCI) by exploiting their advantages. However, an efficient strategy for integrating the two methods has not yet been established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Hum Neurosci
December 2024
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Türkiye.
Introduction: Motor Imagery (MI) Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are non-stationary and dynamic physiological signals which have low signal-to-noise ratio. Hence, it is difficult to achieve high classification accuracy. Although various machine learning methods have already proven useful to that effect, the use of many features and ineffective EEG channels often leads to a complex structure of classifier algorithms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Bioinformatics
December 2024
College of Computer and Information Engineering/College of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 210093, China.
Background: The collection of substantial amounts of electroencephalogram (EEG) data is typically time-consuming and labor-intensive, which adversely impacts the development of decoding models with strong generalizability, particularly when the available data is limited. Utilizing sufficient EEG data from other subjects to aid in modeling the target subject presents a potential solution, commonly referred to as domain adaptation. Most current domain adaptation techniques for EEG decoding primarily focus on learning shared feature representations through domain alignment strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
December 2024
School of Population Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia.
While bacille-calmette-guerin (BCG) vaccination is one of the recommended strategies for preventing tuberculosis (TB), its coverage is low in several countries, including Ethiopia. This study investigated the spatial co-distribution and drivers of TB prevalence and low BCG coverage in Ethiopia. This ecological study was conducted using data from a national TB prevalence survey and the Ethiopian demographic and health survey (EDHS) to map the spatial co-distribution of BCG vaccination coverage and TB prevalence.
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