Non-invasive Brain-computer Interfaces for Control of Assistive Devices

Study Purpose:

A brain-computer interface (BCI) decodes users' behavioral intentions or mental states directly from their brain activity, thus allowing operation of devices without requiring any overt motor action. One major modality for BCI control is based on motor imagery (MI), which is the mental rehearsal of the kinesthetics of a movement without actually performing it. MI-based BCIs translate motor intents into control commands for external devices. A major challenge in such BCIs is differentiating MI patterns corresponding to fine hand movements of the same limb from non-invasive EEG recordings with low spatial resolution since the cortical sources responsible for these movements are overlapping. In this study, the investigators hypothesize that neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) applied contingent to the voluntary activation of the primary motor cortex through MI can help differentiate patterns of activity associated with different hand movements of the same limb by consistently recruiting the separate neural pathways associated with each of the movements within a closed-loop BCI setup. This is expected to be associated with neuroplastic changes at the cortical or corticospinal levels.

Study Status:

Not recruiting

Disease:

Motor Disorders , Healthy , Spinal Cord Injuries , Muscular Diseases , Motor Neuron Disease , Stroke , Traumatic Brain Injury , Movement Disorders

Study Type:

Interventional

Type of Intervention:

Device

Intervention Name:

NMES-BCI, Visual-BCI

Placebo:

Phase:

N/A

Study Chair(s)/Principal Investigator(s):

Jose del R. Millan, PhD, The University of Texas at Austin

Clinicaltrials.gov ID:

NCT05183152

Neals Affiliated?

No

Coordinating Center Contact Information