Current trends in brain-computer interface research at the Neil Squire foundation

The Neil Squire Foundation (NSF) is a Canadian nonprofit organization whose purpose is to create opportunities for independence for individuals who have significant physical disabilities. Over the last ten years, our team in partnership with researchers at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, the University of British Columbia, has been working to develop a direct brain-controlled switch for individuals with significant physical disabilities. The NSF Brain Interface Project primarily focuses on the development of brain-computer interface switch technologies for intermittent (or asynchronous) control in natural environments. That is, technologies that will work when the user intends control but also remains in a stable off state when there is no intent to control. A prototype of such a switch has successfully been developed. This switch has demonstrated classification accuracies greater than 94%. The initial results are promising, but further research is required to improve switch accuracies and reliability and to test these switch technologies over a larger population of users and operating conditions. This paper provides an overview of the NSF brain-switch technologies and details our approach to future work in this area.