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BackgroundSteady-State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) is a visual cortical response evoked by repetitive stimuli with a light source flickering at frequencies above 4 Hz and could be classified into three ranges: low (up to 12 Hz), medium (12-30) and high frequency (> 30 Hz). SSVEP-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are principally focused on the low and medium range of frequencies whereas there are only a few projects in the high-frequency range. However, they only evaluate the performance of different methods to extract SSVEP.MethodsThis research proposed a high-frequency SSVEP-based asynchronous BCI in order to control the navigation of a mobile object on the screen through a scenario and to reach its final destination. This could help impaired people to navigate a robotic wheelchair. There were three different scenarios with different difficulty levels (easy, medium and difficult). The signal processing method is based on Fourier transform and three EEG measurement channels.ResultsThe research obtained accuracies ranging in classification from 65% to 100% with Information Transfer Rate varying from 9.4 to 45 bits/min.ConclusionsOur proposed method allows all subjects participating in the study to control the mobile object and to reach a final target without prior training.

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In this work, it is proposed a technique for the feature extraction of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals for classification of mental tasks which is an important part in the development of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI). The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is a method capable to process nonstationary and nonlinear signals as the EEG. This technique was applied in EEG signals of 7 subjects performing 5 mental tasks. For each mode obtained from the EMD and each EEG channel were computed six features: Root Mean Square (RMS), Variance, Shannon Entropy, Lempel-Ziv Complexity Value, and Central and Maximum Frequencies, obtaining a feature vector of 180 components. The Wilks' lambda parameter was applied for the selection of the most important variables reducing the dimensionality of the feature vector. The classification of mental tasks was performed using Linear Discriminate Analysis (LD) and Neural Networks (NN). With this method, the average classification over all subjects in database was 91+/-5% and 87+/-5% using LD and NN, respectively. It was concluded that the EMD allows getting better performances in the classification of mental tasks than the obtained with other traditional methods, like spectral analysis.

This work presents a study of chromatic and luminance stimuli in low-, medium-, and high-frequency stimulation to evoke steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) in the behind-the-ears area. Twelve healthy subjects participated in this study. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured on occipital (Oz) and left and right temporal (TP9 and TP10) areas. The SSVEP was evaluated in terms of amplitude, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and detection accuracy using power spectral density analysis (PSDA), canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and temporally local multivariate synchronization index (TMSI) methods. It was found that stimuli based on suitable color and luminance elicited stronger SSVEP in the behind-the-ears area, and that the response of the SSVEP was related to the flickering frequency and the color of the stimuli. Thus, green-red stimulus elicited the highest SSVEP in medium-frequency range, and green-blue stimulus elicited the highest SSVEP in high-frequency range, reaching detection accuracy rates higher than 80%. These findings will aid in the development of more comfortable, accurate and stable BCIs with electrodes positioned on the behind-the-ears (hairless) areas.