A low-Cost, Open-Source, BCI- VR Game Control Development Environment Prototype for Game Based Neurorehabilitation

PubDate: November 2018

Teams: National University of Ireland Galway

Writers: Michael McMahon; Michael Schukat

PDF: A low-Cost, Open-Source, BCI- VR Game Control Development Environment Prototype for Game Based Neurorehabilitation

Abstract

In this paper we present a low-cost and open-source brain-computer interface (BCI) virtual-reality (VR) Game Control Development Environment prototype, which we demonstrate using real-time signal processing of Electroencephalography (EEG) event-related desynchronization and synchronization changes (ERD/ERS) within the Precentral Gyrus (Motor Cortex), allowing a user to control a 3D object within a Virtual Reality Environment. This BCI-VR system prototype was functionally tested on multiple participants and demonstrated live before an audience during the 2017 `Hack the Brain’ at the Dublin Science Gallery. The availability of such an open-source, effective, BCI-VR Game Control Development Environment, at a level acceptable for industry experimentation, has the potential to open up this field to a much wider range of researchers and games developers and to assist the investigation of gaming experiences which both incorporate the specific control features available through BCI as a core element of the game play and the potential for its use in neurorehabilitation.