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A P300-based brain–computer interface aimed at operating electronic devices at home for severely disabled people

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Abstract

The present study aims at developing and assessing an assistive tool for operating electronic devices at home by means of a P300-based brain–computer interface (BCI). Fifteen severely impaired subjects participated in the study. The developed tool allows users to interact with their usual environment fulfilling their main needs. It allows for navigation through ten menus and to manage up to 113 control commands from eight electronic devices. Ten out of the fifteen subjects were able to operate the proposed tool with accuracy above 77 %. Eight out of them reached accuracies higher than 95 %. Moreover, bitrates up to 20.1 bit/min were achieved. The novelty of this study lies in the use of an environment control application in a real scenario: real devices managed by potential BCI end-users. Although impaired users might not be able to set up this system without aid of others, this study takes a significant step to evaluate the degree to which such populations could eventually operate a stand-alone system. Our results suggest that neither the type nor the degree of disability is a relevant issue to suitably operate a P300-based BCI. Hence, it could be useful to assist disabled people at home improving their personal autonomy.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the Project Cero 2011 on Ageing from Fundación General CSIC, Obra Social La Caixa and CSIC and by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and FEDER under project TEC2011-22987. R. Corralejo was in receipt of a PIRTU Grant from the Consejería de Educación (Junta de Castilla y León) and the European Social Fund. L.F. Nicolás-Alonso was in receipt of a PIF-UVa Grant from the Universidad de Valladolid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Engineering Group, E.T.S.I. de Telecomunicación, Universidad de Valladolid, Paseo Belén 15, 47011, Valladolid, Spain

    Rebeca Corralejo, Luis F. Nicolás-Alonso, Daniel Álvarez & Roberto Hornero

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  1. Rebeca Corralejo
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  2. Luis F. Nicolás-Alonso
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  3. Daniel Álvarez
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  4. Roberto Hornero
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Correspondence to Rebeca Corralejo.

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Corralejo, R., Nicolás-Alonso, L.F., Álvarez, D. et al. A P300-based brain–computer interface aimed at operating electronic devices at home for severely disabled people. Med Biol Eng Comput 52, 861–872 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1191-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1191-5

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