A real-time software toolbox for brain-machine interfaces using magnetoencephelography
-
1
Carnegie Mellon University, United States
-
2
University of Pittsburgh, United States
-
3
University of California, United States
-
4
Elekta Oy, Finland
-
5
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, United States
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive way to investigate brain functions and cognition with high temporal resolution. There is an emerging interest in studying the potential of using MEG as a brain-machine interface (BMI). To date, the majority of studies have performed offline analysis to reveal detailed information about the spatial and temporal evolution of neural activity as it relates to a task, or to measure neuroplasticity resulting from an intervention. However, real-time feedback of this activity could benefit many areas of research, including BMI. Currently there is no available method to capture the large amount of information from this complex system in order to provide real-time feedback. We have developed a toolbox that can stream in real-time MEG signals from an Elekta Neuromag® device to any computer. These signals can be processed with minimal delay (<30 ms) and used for different types of applications. Our MEG toolbox is integrated with BCI2000, a widely used open source software package developed by Schalk et al. [1], and it can be easily configured to relay the real-time signal in binary format to any arbitrary host in the network. Preliminary results indicate that we can achieve a frame-rate of approximately 35 Hz with a data sampling rate of 1000 Hz, which is sufficient for many real-time BMI studies. This real-time software can be a valuable tool to promote neuroplasticity using a BMI paradigm, as well as to facilitate the recovery of function for patients with motor impairments caused by stroke or spinal cord injury. The toolbox will be made available to the scientific research community as open source along with the BCI2000 software, and we hope that it can open new possibilities for the many areas of research using MEG.
References
1. Schalk, G., McFarland, DJ, Hinterberger, T., Birbaumer, N., and Wolpaw, J. “BCI2000: a general-purpose brain-computer interface (BCI) systemâ€. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 51 - 6. 2004.
Conference:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism , Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28 Mar - 1 Apr, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Brain-computer and neural interfacing
Citation:
Sudre
G,
Wang
W,
Song
T,
Kajola
M,
Vinjamuri
R,
Collinger
J,
Degenhart
A,
Bagic
A and
Weber
D
(2010). A real-time software toolbox for brain-machine interfaces using magnetoencephelography.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00255
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
01 Apr 2010;
Published Online:
01 Apr 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Gustavo Sudre, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States, gsudre@cmu.edu