Enhanced Performance of a Brain Switch by Simultaneous Use of EEG and NIRS Data for Asynchronous Brain-Computer Interface

• Published in: IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering 2020-10, Vol.28 (10), p.2102-2112
• Main Authors: Han, Chang-Hee, Muller, Klaus-Robert, Hwang, Han-Jeong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Band-pass filters; Brain; brain switch; Brain-computer interface (BCI); Computer applications; EEG; Electroencephalography; electroencephalography (EEG); Feature extraction; Human-computer interface; Hybrid systems; Implants; Information transfer; Infrared spectra; Infrared spectroscopy; Interfaces; Internet; Medical imaging; Near infrared radiation; near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS); Neuroimaging; On-line systems; onset detection; Performance enhancement; Switches; Task analysis
• ISSN: 1534-4320; 1558-0210
• DOI: 10.1109/TNSRE.2020.3017167

Previous studies have shown the superior performance of hybrid electroencephalography (EEG)/ near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). However, it has been veiled whether the use of a hybrid EEG/NIRS modality can provide better performance for a brain switch that can detect the onset of the intention to turn on a BCI. In this study, we developed such a hybrid EEG/NIRS brain switch and compared its performance with single modality EEG- and NIRS-based brain switch respectively, in terms of true positive rate (TPR), false positive rate (FPR), onset detection time (ODT), and information transfer rate (ITR). In an offline analysis, the performance of a hybrid EEG/NIRS brain switch was significantly improved over that of EEG- and NIRS-based brain switches in general, and in particular a significantly lower FPR was observed for the hybrid EEG/NIRS brain switch. A pseudo-online analysis was additionally performed to confirm the feasibility of implementing an online BCI system with our hybrid EEG/NIRS brain switch. The overall trend of pseudo-online analysis results generally coincided with that of the offline analysis results. No significant difference in all performance measures was also found between offline and pseudo online analysis schemes when the amount of training data was same, with one exception for the ITRs of an EEG brain switch. These offline and pseudo-online results demonstrate that a hybrid EEG/NIRS brain switch can be used to provide a better onset detection performance than that of a single neuroimaging modality.