Video Games For Use In Brain Computer Interface Systems

People with spinal cord injuries or certain neurodegenerative diseases currently have limited options for assistive or rehabilitative technology. Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) systems provide a mechanism to allow people with motor deficits to control both software and hardware prosthetic devices directly using brain signals. Video games are one possible control endpoint for BCIs systems. They are useful because they give subjects complex environments for practice and give BCI developers a tool to evaluate performance. While existing games could be used, customized implementations allow for more detailed control of features, difficulty, and acquisition of data for evaluation purposes. This work presents video games developed as part of the Craniux BCI system that exercise 1 and 2 dimensional movement control. This research is part of the Human Rehabilitation and Neural Engineering Laboratory (hRNEL). Games allow practice in a feature rich environment, and multiple forms of evaluation and training. The objective is to customize the games to be easier to control and allow modifications. Some of the games undergoing development are Boat Racing Game and Explorer Boy Game. Both games receive instructions from the BCI system in the form of UDP signals.  Feedbacks about features in the game like user position, targets are transmitted back to the Craniux BCI system, also via UDP. Both levels the expectations is used for training and make the calibration of the brain signals on the computer to the patients that used ECoG before they use the other research experiment and to evaluate performance.