CSNE Special Seminar

The CSNE will sponsor a seminar titled “Visual Motion Brain Computer Interface: From Scalp to Cortex” by Bo Hong, Ph.D., Associate Professor/Vice Dean, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Seminar abstract:

Visual motion is processed over the middle temporal (MT) area of visual cortex. Visual motion stimulus elicits prominent neural response over MT area that can be detected at both cortical and scalp level (as motion VEP). Not until recently have motion VEP been introduced as a new modality for brain computer interface (BCI) applications (Guo, et al. 2008). The attended visual motion stimuli elicit a more negative N200 over parietal-occipital areas than the unattended stimuli, which constitutes the basis for BCI classification. Compared to traditional visual P300, motion VEP may be a better candidate towards building practical BCI systems due to its non-flashing nature, less requirement of visual luminance and contrast, stable response across trials and subjects, localized spatial distribution, etc. We implemented both N200 speller (Hong et al. 2009; Zhang et al, 2012) and motion VEP based Google search BCI (Liu at al. 2010), showing feasibility of a motion VEP based BCI which could be embedded into computer screen elements, such as menu, button and icon, for various applications. With the high signal-to-noise ratio and rich frequency components of ECoG, we further explored the possibility of implementing an cortical visual motion BCI with single subdural electrode. Promising results shed light on the minimally invasive BCI implant over visual cortex.