AUTHOR=Russell Matthew , Hincks Samuel , Wang Liang , Babar Amin , Chen Zaiyi , White Zachary , Jacob Robert J. K. 

TITLE=Visualization and workload with implicit fNIRS-based BCI: toward a real-time memory prosthesis with fNIRS

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroergonomics

VOLUME=Volume 6 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroergonomics/articles/10.3389/fnrgo.2025.1550629

DOI=10.3389/fnrgo.2025.1550629

ISSN=2673-6195

ABSTRACT=Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) has proven in recent time to be a reliable workload-detection tool, usable in real-time implicit Brain-Computer Interfaces. But what can be done in terms of application of neural measurements of the prefrontal cortex beyond mental workload? We trained and tested a first prototype example of a memory prosthesis leveraging a real-time implicit fNIRS-based BCI interface intended to present information appropriate to a user's current brain state from moment to moment. Our prototype implementation used data from two tasks designed to interface with different brain networks: a creative visualization task intended to engage the Default Mode Network (DMN), and a complex knowledge-worker task to engage the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC). Performance of 71% from leave-one-out cross-validation across participants indicates that such tasks are differentiable, which is promising for the development of future applied fNIRS-based BCI systems. Further, analyses within lateral and medial left prefrontal areas indicates promising approaches for future classification.