BRAIN COMPUTER

INTERFACE
HCI Report
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is done as a semester project as a part of course
titled “Human Computer Interaction”. We are immensely
thankful to our Teacher “Khuwaja Mohiduddin” for their
invaluable guidance and assistance, without which the
accomplishment of this task wouldn’t have been possible. We
also thank them for giving us the opportunity to explore in the
real world of Computer Interaction and its use in real life.
Table of contents

Introduction
Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a communication system, which enables the
user to control special computer applications by using only his or her thoughts. It
will allow human brain to accept and control a mechanical device as a part of the
body. Data can flow from brain to the outside machinery, or to brain from the
outside machinery. Different research groups have examined and used different
methods to achieve this. Almost all of them are based on electroencephalography
(EEG) recorded from the scalp. Our major goal of such research is to create a
system that allows patients who have damaged their sensory/motor nerves
severely to activate outside mechanisms by using brain signals.
Cyber kinetics Inc., a leader in neuro-technology has developed the first
implantable brain-computer interface that can reliably interpret brain signals and
perhaps read decisions made in the brain to develop a fast, reliable and
unobtrusive connection between the brain of severely disabled person to a
personal computer.
The BCI can lead to many applications especially for disabled persons such as
1. New ways for gamers to play games using their heads,
2. Social interactions; enabling social applications to capture feelings and
emotions,
3. Helping—partially or fully-disabled people to interact with different
computational devices,
4. Helping understanding more about brain activities and human neural
networks.
These applications depend on the basic understanding of how the brain works.

Brain Machine Interface

A brain-machine interface (BMI) is an attempt to mesh our minds with machines.

It is a communication channel from a human's brain to a computer, which does
not resort to the usual human output pathways as muscles. It is about giving
machine-like capabilities to intelligence, asking the brain to accommodate
synthetic devices, and learning how to control those devices much the way we
control our arms and legs today. These experiments lend hope that people with
spinal injuries will be able to someday use their brain to control a prosthetic limb,
or even their own arm. A BMI could, e.g., allow a paralyzed patient to convey
her/his intentions to a computer program. But also applications in which healthy
users can benefit from the direct brain computer communication are conceivable,
e.g., to speed up reaction times. Initially theses interactions are with peripheral
devices, but ultimately it may be interaction with another brain. The first
peripheral devices were robotic arms. Our approach bases on an artificial neural
network that recognizes and classifies different brain activation patterns
associated with carefully selected mental tasks. Using BMI artificial electrical
signal can stimulate the brain tissue in order to transmit some particular sensory
information.

The Human Brain

All of it happens in the brain. The brain is undoubtedly the most complex organ
found among the carbon-based life forms. So complex it is that we have only
vague information about how it works. The average human brain weights around
1400 grams. The most relevant part of brain concerning BMI‘s is the cerebral
cortex. The cerebral cortex can be divided into two hemispheres. The
hemispheres are connected with each other via corpus callosum. Each
hemisphere can be divided into four lobes. They are called frontal, parietal,
occipital and temporal lobes. Cerebral cortex is responsible for many higher order
functions like problem solving, language comprehension and processing of
complex visual information. The cerebral cortex can be divided into several areas,
which are responsible of different functions. This kind of knowledge has been
used when with BCI‘s based on the pattern recognition approach. The mental
tasks are chosen in such a way that they activate different parts of the cerebral
cortex.

Main Principle
Main principle behind this interface is the bioelectrical activity of nerves and
muscles. It is now well established that the human body, which is composed of
living tissues, can be considered as a power station generating multiple electrical
signals with two internal sources, namely muscles and nerves.
We know that brain is the most important part of human body. It controls all the
emotions and functions of the human body. The brain is composed of millions of
neurons. These neurons work together in complex logic and produce thought and
signals that control our bodies. When the neuron fires, or activates, there is a
voltage change across the cell, (~100mv) which can be read through a variety of
devices. When we want to make a voluntary action, the command generates from
the frontal lobe. Signals are generated on the surface of the brain. These electric
signals are different in magnitude and frequency.
By monitoring and analyzing these signals we can understand the working of
brain. When we imagine ourselves doing something, small signals generate from
different areas of the brain. These signals are not large enough to travel down the
spine and cause actual movement. These small signals are, however, measurable.
A neuron depolarizes to generate an impulse; this action causes small changes in
the electric field around the neuron. These changes are measured as 0 (no
impulse) or 1 (impulse generated) by the electrodes. We can control the brain
functions by artificially producing these signals and sending them to respective
parts. This is through stimulation of that part of the brain, which is responsible for
a particular function using implanted electrodes.

Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method used in measuring the electrical
activity of the brain. The brain generates rhythmical potentials which originate in
the individual neurons of the brain. These potentials get summated as millions of
cell discharge synchronously and appear as a surface waveform, the recording of
which is known as the electroencephalogram.
The neurons, like other cells of the body, are electrically polarized at rest. The
interior of the neuron is at a potential of about –70mV relative to the exterior.
When a neuron is exposed to a stimulus above a certain threshold, a nerve
impulse, seen as a change in membrane potential, is generated which spreads in
the cell resulting in the depolarization of the cell. Shortly afterwards,
repolarization occurs.
The EEG signal can be picked up with electrodes either from scalp or directly from
the cerebral cortex. As the neurons in our brain communicate with each other by
firing electrical impulses, this creates an electric field which travels though the
cortex, the Dura, the skull and the scalp. The EEG is measured from the surface of
the scalp by measuring potential difference between the actual measuring
electrode and a reference electrode.
The peak-to-peak amplitude of the waves that can be picked up from the scalp is
normally 100 microV or less while that on the exposed brain, is about 1mV. The
frequency varies greatly with different behavioral states. The normal EEG
frequency content ranges from 0.5 to 50 Hz.
Frequency information is particularly significant since the basic frequency of the
EEG range is classified into five bands for purposes of EEG analysis. These bands
are called brain rhythms and are named after Greek letters.
Five brain rhythms are displayed in Table.2. Most of the brain research is
concentrated in these channels and especially alpha and beta bands are
important for BCI research. The reason why the bands do not follow the Greek
letter magnitude (alpha is not the lowest band) is that this is the order in which
they were discovered.

The alpha rhythm is one of the principal components of the EEG and is an
indicator of the state of alertness of the brain.
BCI Approach
What are the thoughts the user thinks in order to control a BMI? An ideal BMI
could detect the user‘s wishes and commands directly. However, this is not
possible with today‘s technology. Therefore, BMI researches have used the
knowledge they have had of the human brain and the EEG in order to design a
BMI. There are basically two different approaches that have been used. The first
one called a pattern recognition approach is based on cognitive mental tasks. The
second one called an operant conditioning approach is based on the self-
regulation of the EEG response.
In the first approach the subject concentrates on a few mental tasks.
Concentration on these mental tasks produces different EEG patterns. The BCI (or
the classifier in particular) can then be trained to classify these patterns.
In the second approach the user has to learn to self-regulate his or her EEG
response, for example change the beta rhythm amplitude. Unlike in the pattern
recognition approach, the BMI itself is not trained but it looks for particular
changes (for example higher amplitude of a certain frequency) in the EEG signal.
This requires usually a long training period, because the entire training load is on
the user.
Block Diagram Description
The BMI consists of several components:
1. The implant device, or chronic multi-electrode array,
2. The signal recording and processing section,
3. An external device the subject uses to produce and control motion
4. A feedback section to the subject. T
The first component is an implanted array of microelectrodes into the frontal
and parietal lobes—areas of the brain involved in producing multiple output
commands to control complex muscle movements. This device record action
potentials of individual neurons and then represent the neural signal using a rate
code .The second component consists of spike detection algorithms, neural
encoding and decoding systems, data acquisition and real time processing
 systems etc. A high performance DSP architecture is used for this purpose. The
external device that the subject uses may be a robotic arm, a wheel chair etc.
depending upon the application. Feedback is an important factor in BCI‘s. In the
BCI‘s based on the operant conditioning approach, feedback training is essential
for the user to acquire the control of his or her EEG response. However,
feedback can speed up the learning process and improve performance.

Types of Brain Computer Interface (BCI)

There are several types of brain-computer interfaces that are reported. The basic
purpose of these devices or types is to intercept the electrical signals that pass
between neurons in the brain and translate them to a signal that is sensed by
external devices.