Applications

A point-and-click typing BCI tested by three BrainGate2 participants with paralysis. Typing rates of 31.6, 39.2 and 13.5 correct characters per minute, 1.4 to 4.2 times faster than earlier intracortical BCIs. eLife, February 2017.

Application — Intracortical

Intracortical typing BCI (Pandarinath, 2017)

Source →

typing · point and click · intracortical · BrainGate2 · ALS · tetraplegia · decoder · academic · human

Device

No device entry covers this hardware yet. The spec card below lists what the source says.

Lab or organization

Intracortical typing BCI (Pandarinath, 2017)

One-line verdict: The point-and-click typing record that the 2021 handwriting BCI later more than doubled. The authors credit advances in decoder design.

Quick tags: Recording · Intracortical · Human · Published 21 February 2017 (eLife)

Overview

What it is: A high-performance intracortical BCI for communication, tested by three clinical trial participants with paralysis in the BrainGate2 pilot clinical trial (NCT00912041). The authors say it used advances in decoder design from earlier pre-clinical and clinical studies.

Results (as reported): For all three participants, typing rate exceeded earlier intracortical BCIs by a factor of 1.4 to 4.2, and information throughput by a factor of 2.2 to 4.0. Average copy-typing rates were 31.6 correct characters per minute (6.3 words per minute) for T6, 39.2 (7.8 wpm) for T5, and 13.5 (2.7 wpm) for T7. T6, who has ALS, averaged 23.9 correct characters per minute on a QWERTY keyboard and 31.6 on the OPTI-II layout, 1.3 times faster.

Why it matters: It set the intracortical typing benchmark. The 2021 handwriting paper cites T5’s 39 correct characters per minute from this work as the prior record. See the handwriting BCI entry.

Limits: Three participants, with a wide spread between them. The sources read here do not describe the array hardware.

Spec Card Grid

Identity

  • Paper: “High performance communication by people with paralysis using an intracortical brain-computer interface,” eLife, 21 February 2017
  • Trial: BrainGate2 pilot clinical trial, NCT00912041
  • Participants: T6, T5, T7

Results

  • T6: 31.6 correct characters per minute (OPTI-II layout)
  • T5: 39.2 correct characters per minute
  • T7: 13.5 correct characters per minute
  • Versus earlier iBCIs: typing rate 1.4 to 4.2 times, throughput 2.2 to 4.0 times

Evidence and limits

  • Not covered here: array model and channel counts; no 3D model yet

References