Workshops of the Fifth International Brain-Computer Interface Meeting: Defining the Future

Abstract

The Fifth International Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Meeting met on 3–7 June 2013 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, California, USA. The conference included 19 workshops covering topics in brain-computer interface and brain-machine interface research. Topics included translation of BCIs into clinical use, standardization and certification, types of brain activity to use for BCI, recording methods, the effects of plasticity, special interest topics in BCIs applications, and future BCI directions. BCI research is well established and transitioning to practical use to benefit people with physical impairments. At the same time, new applications are being explored, both for people with physical impairments and beyond. Here we provide summaries of each workshop, illustrating the breadth and depth of BCI research and highlighting important issues for future research and development.

Keywords:

• brain-computer interface
• brain-machine interface
• neuroprosthetics
• conference

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD), National Institute Of Biomedical Imaging And Bioengineering (NIBIB), and National Institute Of Neurological Disorders And Stroke (NINDS) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their grant # R13 DC012744 which supported the BCI Meeting and the travel of many students to the Meeting. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of NIDCD, NICHD, NIBIB, NINDS or NIH. We also thank NSF for travel support assisting student attendance at the BCI Meeting.

The workshop organizers thank the members of the Steering Committee for the Fifth International Brain-Computer Interface Meeting: Jane Huggins, Benjamin Blankertz, Febo Cincotti, Janis Daly, Emanuel Donchin, Shangkai Gao, Christoph Guger, Bin He, Leigh Hochberg, Melody Jackson, Andrea Kübler, José del R. Millán, Lee Miller, Koichi Mori, Gernot Müller-Putz, Femke Nijboer, Bijan Pesaran, Nick Ramsey, Gerwin Schalk, Theresa Vaughan, Justin Williams, Catherine Wolf, Jonathan Wolpaw.

Individual Workshop Acknowledgments

The workshop Independent Home Use of BCI was supported by the European ICT Programme Projects FP7-287320 and FP7-288566. This work only reflects the authors’ views and funding agencies are not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.

The workshop Augmentative and Alternative Communication for BCI 101 was supported in part by NIH/NIDCD grant 1R01DC009834. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of NIDCD or NIH.

The workshop BCI Performance Metrics would like to thank Dr. Cindy Chestek for supporting Dr. Thompson’s travel.

The workshop Cognitive Processes and Brain-Machine Interfaces acknowledges the following participants in alphabetical order: A.M. Brouwer (TNO, NL); E. Donchin (U. South Florida, USA); N. Evans (EPFL, CH); R. Leeb (EPFL, CH); J.d.R. Millán (EPFL, CH); T. Mullen (UCSD, USA); S. Rosen (U. Miami); J Sanchez (U. Miami); T. Schultz (KIH, GE); A. Sobolewski (EPFL, CH); A. Soria-Frisch (Starlab, ES);

The workshop Teaching the BCI Skill would like to thank all the participants for the inspiring and insightful discussions that occurred during the workshop.

The workshop Non-invasive BCI-control of Grasp Neuroprosthesis in High Spinal Cord Injured Humans would like to thank T.S. for the demonstration during the workshop. For his participation in our experiments over the last 12 years he received the Olijnyk Award of the International Electrical Stimulation Society (IFESS).

The workshop Current State and Future Challenges in Auditory BCI was partly supported by BrainLinks-BrainTools Cluster of Excellence funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, grant number EXC 1086).

The workshop Combining BMI and Neural Stimulation for Restoration of Sensory-motor Function would like to acknowledge the particularly active contributions to the discussion by A Soria-Frisch (Starlab, ES); S Bensmaia (U. Chicago, USA); and JdR Millán (EPFL, CH).

The workshop organizers for Tactile and Bone-Conduction Based BCI Paradigms - State of the Art, Challenges and Potential New Applications, T.M. Rutkowski, H. Mori and M. Chang, were supported in part by the Strategic Information and Communications R&D Promotion Programme no. 121803027 of The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication in Japan.

The workshop BCIs for Neurodevelopmental Disorders would like to thank Jeanne Townsend for enthusiastic support of the workshop, Elizabeth Friedrich, Cathrine Dam (EGI net) and Robin Johnson (ABM) for actively participating in the workshop and all the participants for the informative and lively discussions.

The workshop Passive BCI thanks all workshop participants for their active participation!