mindBEAGLE Brain-Computer Interface Gives Non-Speaking, Immobilized People a
  Voice
From: IEEE Spectrum - 11/16/2017
By: Emily Waltz

mindBEAGLE EEG helps people trapped in paralyzed bodies tell their families
they understand

An Austrian organization is using brain-computer interface technology to help
people in one of life’s most horrifying plights: being cognitively aware, but
trapped in a body that can’t move, speak, blink or communicate in any way.
The developer of the system, g.tec medical engineering, is commercializing
the system.

The tool gives people in this dreaded condition, called locked-in syndrome,
the ability to answer yes-or-no questions using only their thoughts. The
technique can also aid communication with people in unresponsive wakefulness
states, but not people in comas where there in no cognitive function.

The system, called mindBEAGLE, relies on electroencephalography (EEG) to
detect brain activity, and machine-learning algorithms to interpret the
meaning of that activity - a type of communication called brain-computer
interface, or BCI. In the mindBEAGLE system, users wear on their scalps an
EEG cap with 16 electrodes. They also wear on their hands vibration motors
that deliver tactile sensations much like the vibration of a ringing mobile
phone.

Then the user is asked a yes-or-no question. To respond, users focus on the
vibrations on one of their hands—left hand for "yes" and right hand for "no".
The EEG cap detects the brain activity generated by the task. The most
important signals are p300s-brain waves that occur when someone is responding
to an uncommon event that requires attention, says Christoph Guger, CEO and
founder of g.tec.

Read the entire article and view a video (2:07) at:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/mindbeagle-brain-computer-interface-gives-a-voice-to-non-speaking-immobilized-people

Links:
g.tec medical engineering
http://www.gtec.at

mindBEAGLE
http://www.mindbeagle.at/Home

Related:
On ERPs detection in disorders of consciousness rehabilitation
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00775/full

Brain-Computer Interface–Based Communication in the Completely Locked-In State
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002593