{"id":661380,"date":"2020-05-21T13:38:22","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T20:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-project&#038;p=661380"},"modified":"2024-06-24T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T18:12:10","slug":"brain-computer-interfaces","status":"publish","type":"msr-project","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/brain-computer-interfaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain-Computer Interfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that measures central nervous system (CNS) activity and converts it into artificial output that replaces, restores, enhances, supplements, or improves the natural CNS output and thereby changes the ongoing interactions between the CNS and its external or internal environment. BCI is direct communication pathway between an enhanced or wired brain and an external device.<\/p>\n<p>The Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) project in Microsoft Research aims to enable BCI for the general population. This means non-intrusive methods, fewer number of electrodes and custom-designed signal picking devices. We go towards interactive BCI, which means response times within seconds and using EEG signals.<\/p>\n<h3>Activity of CNS<\/h3>\n<p>Direct measurement:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Electroencephalographic signals (EEG)<\/li>\n<li>Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)<\/li>\n<li>Magnetoencephalography (MEG)<\/li>\n<li>Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)<\/li>\n<li>Positron Emission Tomography (PET)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Indirect indications:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>heart rate, pupil dilation, galvanic skin resistance (GSR)<\/li>\n<li>gaze dynamics, gesture\/posture\/gait dynamics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Neuroimaging modalities:<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 80%;border-collapse: collapse;border-spacing: inherit;margin-bottom: 40px\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"6\" cellpadding=\"6\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\"><strong>Recording method<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>Abbr.<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>SNR<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>Temporal resolution<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>Spatial resolution<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>Probably portable<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\"><strong>Invasive<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Electrocorticography<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">ECoG<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Yes<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Electroencephalography<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">EEG<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid to low<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid to low<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Yes<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Magnetoencephalography<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">MEG<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Function MRI<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">fMRI<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Low<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">High<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Function Near-Infrared Spectroscopy<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">fNIRS<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Low<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Low<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Mid<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">Yes<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 14.2857%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid;text-align: center\">No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3>Electrical activity of the brain<\/h3>\n<p>Action potentials:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Single neuron electrical activity<\/li>\n<li>Spikes 40 mV\/1-2 ms\/0-1,000 Hz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Local field potentials (LFP):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Group of neurons<\/li>\n<li>50-350 \u00b5V, up to 350 Hz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Electrocorticography (ECoG):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Electrodes on the surface of the brain (4-32)<\/li>\n<li>100 \u00b5V\/200 Hz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Electroencephalography (EEG):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Electrodes on the skull (16-256): dry, gel, saline solution<\/li>\n<li>1-10 \u00b5V\/50 Hz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Frequency bands:<\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse;width: 60%;border-spacing: inherit;margin-bottom: 40px;padding: 3px\" border=\"1\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 15.6252%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\"><strong>Band<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 41.0923%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\"><strong>Frequency, Hz<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 15.6252%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Delta<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 41.0923%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">< 4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 15.6252%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Theta<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 41.0923%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">from 4 to 8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 15.6252%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Alpha<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 41.0923%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">from 8 to 14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 15.6252%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">Beta<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 41.0923%;padding: inherit;border: 1px solid\">> 14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3>Types of BCI<\/h3>\n<p>Passive BCI:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Monitoring the human state: emotion, attention, cognitive load<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Interactive BCI:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Direct EEG decoding<\/li>\n<li>Imaginary\/inducted\/stimulated movements, typically from the motor cortex<\/li>\n<li>Attention decoding to audio or video<\/li>\n<li>Evoked potentials: steady state video, or audio, or haptic, or \u2026<\/li>\n<li>Event related potentials: P300<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Active BCI:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All the above<\/li>\n<li>Induction of stimulae<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Evoked potentials<\/h3>\n<p>One of the approaches in the interactive BCI<br \/>\nTypes of evoked potentials:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Visual: steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP)<\/li>\n<li>Audio: auditory steady state response (ASSR)<\/li>\n<li>Haptic: steady-state somatosensory evoked potential (SSSEP)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>BCI as type of HMI<\/h3>\n<p>BCI can be treated as another input modality of the human-machine interface. As such it should be used where it is more convenient or there are no other alternatives. Examples here are scenarios with augmented or virtual reality (AR\/VR) glasses and hand-busy\/eyes-busy situations. Such situation can arise on the manufacturing floor when hands are holding tools or are in protecting gloves (no gesture input) and it is too noisy (no voice input).<\/p>\n<h3>Our current research directions<\/h3>\n<p>We target general population (non-intrusive pickup with low number of electrodes) in interactive BCI (signal limited to EEG or MEG) scenarios. The most promising applications include augmenting the UI of AR\/VR glasses with BCI components.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) project in Microsoft Research aims to enable BCI for the general population. This means non-intrusive methods, fewer number of electrodes and custom-designed signal picking devices. We go towards interactive BCI, which means response times within seconds and using EEG signals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":668847,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[243062,13554,13553],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-661380","msr-project","type-msr-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-research-area-audio-acoustics","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-research-area-medical-health-genomics","msr-locale-en_us","msr-archive-status-active"],"msr_project_start":"2018-06-29","related-publications":[661485,1050846,763384,1065057,763438,830983,887826,927873,938556,951393,970326,970338,642027,979095],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-groups":[144923,396845,283244],"related-events":[],"related-opportunities":[],"related-posts":[],"related-articles":[],"tab-content":[],"slides":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Sebastian Braun","user_id":37688,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"sebraun"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Dimitra Emmanouilidou","user_id":37461,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"diemmano"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Hannes Gamper","user_id":31943,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"hagamper"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"David Johnston","user_id":31562,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"davidjo"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Ed Cutrell","user_id":31490,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"cutrell"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Andy Wilson","user_id":31159,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"awilson"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Ivan Tashev","user_id":32127,"people_section":"Project participants","alias":"ivantash"},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Ard Kastrati","user_id":1000305,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Tanmay Srivastava","user_id":1000296,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Tan Gemicioglu","user_id":1000284,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Sophia Mehdizadeh","user_id":1000269,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Justin Kilmarx","user_id":1000257,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"Yu-Te  Wang","user_id":1000245,"people_section":"Past interns and post-doctoral researchers","alias":""},{"type":"guest","display_name":"R. 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