Combining Brain Products and MindAffect
for a fast, robust and reliable BCI speller
by Dr. Christina Florence Lavallée
Strategic Product Manager (Brain Products)
A Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a valuable tool not only for neuroscientists and researchers for learning how the brain responds to stimuli, but also for end users who may make use of assistive technologies, as well as for hackers, developers, and game designers to add brain controls to their projects.
Are you ready to implement your own BCI?
The combination of Brain Products hardware, LabStreamingLayer (LSL), and the open-source MindAffect platform allows you to easily add brain control to many of your projects in a straightforward and user-friendly way. mindaffectBCI provides a platform with many flexible options no matter what level of experience you have. Beginners who are looking for a functional BCI that works out of the box will already be able to spell words, play games or even control lights in a house. Once you’ve gained expertise or perhaps you already have an advanced understanding of BCIs, you can easily adapt, add, or replace any component of the BCI to suit your own needs.
In our recent BCI+ blog post, we guide you through getting set up with the MindAffect c-VEP-based BCI speller [1] used together with our mobile amplifier, the LiveAmp and our active, gel-based electrodes1. This powerful combination of hardware and software provides a strong foundation for your BCI research. As for the hardware, our mobile amplifier can easily be used in both naturalistic and lab-based settings; the active electrodes are easy to apply, as well as provide you with excellent signal quality.
On the software side, the Python-based algorithms employed by MindAffect are fast, reliable, robust, and only require minimal training. After you’ve got your hardware set up and are successfully executing your BCI, you can easily develop your own methods, as MindAffect provides ample documentation, examples, and LSL support.
Check out the following video
… to see just how fast and accurate spelling can be with the powerful combination of the MindAffect c-VEP BCI speller and LiveAmp, with only 8 actiCAP slim electrodes.
Getting started is easy
… with our comprehensive walkthrough on BCI+, but if you were able to take it up a level and adapt this combination to suit your own needs for a BCI, we would love to hear about it. If you have already used this application in a cool new way and want to share it with the community, let us know. We’d be happy to publish your project on the BCI+ blog.
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Reference
[1] Thielen J, van den Broek P, Farquhar J, Desain P (2015)
Broad-Band Visually Evoked Potentials: Re(con)volution in Brain-Computer Interfacing.
PLOS ONE 10(7): e0133797. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133797