Workshops of the eighth international brain–computer interface meeting: BCIs: the next frontier

Abstract

The Eighth International Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Meeting was held June 7-9, 2021 in a virtual format. The conference continued the BCI Meeting series' interactive nature with 21 workshops covering the breadth of topics in BCI (also called brain-machine interface) research. Some workshops provided detailed examinations of methods, hardware, or processes. Others focused on BCI applications or user groups. Several workshops continued consensus building efforts designed to create BCI standards and improve comparisons between studies and the potential for meta-analysis and large multi-site clinical trials. Ethical and translational considerations were the primary topic for some workshops or an important secondary consideration for others. The range of BCI applications continues to expand, with more workshops focusing on approaches that can extend beyond the needs of those with physical impairments. This paper summarizes each workshop, provides background information and references for further study, summarizes discussions, and describes the resulting conclusion, challenges, or initiatives.

Feel Your Reach: An EEG-Based Framework to Continuously Detect Goal-Directed Movements and Error Processing to Gate Kinesthetic Feedback Informed Artificial Arm Control

“…With the latest methodologies, e.g., with deep learning approaches, a session-to-session and even user-touser transfer could overcome the necessity or at least drastically reduce within-session model calibration (cf. Wu et al, 2020;Huggins et al, 2021). Whether improvements on the feature engineering or machine learning side might be sufficient is not easy to predict.…”

A systematic review of research on augmentative and alternative communication brain-computer interface systems for individuals with disabilities

“…Screening tools such as those proposed by Fried- Oken et al (2015) and Pitt and Brumberg (2018a) may support the collection and reporting of these data. International efforts to standardize description of participants and their environments are under way (Huggins et al, 2022).…”

“…A user-centered design approach, with use of AAC-based methods for eliciting user experience feedback when appropriate, should guide system design and iterative development. Finally, the field must continue its collaborative efforts to standardize the reporting of participant characteristics and performance outcome measures, such as those begun during workshops at the international BCI Meeting series (Huggins et al, 2022).…”

“…Feature matching may be an appropriate framework for the selection of appropriate AAC-BCI systems for individuals with SSPI, but the existing body of research may not yet be sufficient to support such an approach (Pitt and Brumberg, 2018b;Brumberg et al, 2019). The BCI field has yet to agree on common standards for participant description or the reporting of system performance results (Allison and Neuper, 2010;Thompson et al, 2013;Eddy et al, 2019;Huggins et al, 2022), adding to the difficulty of interpreting and synthesizing evidence to guide clinical practice.…”