An Asynchronous P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface Web Browser for Severely Disabled People

摘要

Thispaperpresentsanelectroencephalo-graphic (EEG) P300-based brain–computer interface (BCI)Internet browser. The system uses the “odd-ball” row-colparadigm for generating the P300 evoked potentials on the scalpof the user, which are immediately processed and translatedinto web browser commands. There were previous approachesfor controlling a BCI web browser. However, to the best of ourknowledge, none of them was focused on an assistive context,failing to test their applications with a suitable number of endusers. In addition, all of them were synchronous applications,where it was necessary to introduce a “read-mode” commandin order to avoid a continuous command selection. Thus,the aim of this study is twofold: 1) to test our web browserwith a population of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in orderto assess the usefulness of our proposal to meet their dailycommunication needs; and 2) to overcome the aforementionedlimitation by adding a threshold that discerns between controland non-control states, allowing the user to calmly read theweb page without undesirable selections. The browser wastested with sixteen MS patients and five healthy volunteers.Both quantitative and qualitative metrics were obtained. MSparticipants reached an average accuracy of 84.14%, whereas95.75% was achieved by control subjects. Results show thatMS patients can successfully control the BCI web browser,improving their personal autonomy