The use of fMRI for the evaluation of the effect of training in motor imagery BCI users

The development of brain computer interfaces (BCIs) for patient rehabilitation is a growing field of research. The BCI experimental paradigms consist mainly of selective attention BCI models and motor imagery (MI) BCIs. Selective attention models require an external stimulus (screen) but achieve high rates of classification accuracy fairly quickly. MI systems do not require external stimuli but require extensive training. The goal of our study was to gauge how much a short training paradigm requiring seven six-minute sessions of video attention would change fMRI BOLD activity between two sessions of MI ± one acquired before and another after the training protocol took place. The study used four MIs: 1) right hand 2) left hand 3) feet 4) tongue; and it was carried out on ten subjects. We found an increase of the BOLD response after training, both in amplitude and spatial extent, for the majority (6 out of 10) of subjects and MIs (all except left hand). Our results corroborate other literature results regarding the effect of training in MI based BCIs.