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ICBBS 2020 · Brain–Computer Interface

A Millisecond-level Phase Locked Neural Feedback System

A millisecond-level phase locked neural feedback system based on OpenBCI for real-time alpha wave regulation, integrating acquisition, phase estimation and stimulation on one chip.

Xinyue Wang · Shaohui Hou · Li Zhang · Linling Li · Zhen Liang · Zhiguo Zhang · Gan Huang
General system overview.
General system overview. Acquisition, phase estimation and stimulation integrated on a single chip.

The system

The neural oscillation in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is highly related to people’s psychological cognitive ability. To achieve an optimal real-time modulation effect on the alpha wave, we first conduct comprehensive delay analysis and technology selection to propose the ideal architecture of a neural feedback system.

After measurement and analysis of hardware and software delay, we implement an OpenBCI version of a phase-locked feedback control system for real-time alpha wave regulation. Compared with the distributed architecture across Brainamp, PC and Arduino in previous work, the new system integrates all modules — signal acquisition, phase estimation and applying stimulation — on one chip. The delay for signal transmission is therefore effectively eliminated, which leads to better accuracy for phase estimation in phase-locked feedback control.

Results

The results show the effectiveness of the proposed system for alpha wave regulation, with significant modulation advantages in amplitude and frequency compared to distributed BrainProduct architectures.

Modulation effect. Comparison on subject 1, against the distributed BrainProduct setup.

We also developed a PyQtGraph-based visualization tool for real-time monitoring on the host computer, streaming data from the OpenBCI board over Bluetooth 2.0.

Host-computer visualization. Real-time monitoring of the incoming stream.

Read the abstract

The neural oscillation in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is highly related to people's psychological cognitive ability. In this work, an OpenBCI version of phase-locked feedback control system has been implemented for real time alpha wave regulation. As compared with the distributed system architecture on Brainamp, PC and Arduino in the previous work, the new proposed system has integrated all the modules for signal acquisition, phase estimation and applying stimulation on one chip. Hence, the delay for signal transmission can be effectively eliminated, which leads to a better accuracy for phase estimation in phase-locked feedback control. The results show the effective of the proposed system to alpha wave regulation.

Authors & affiliations

Xinyue Wang1 · Shaohui Hou1 · Li Zhang1 · Linling Li1 · Zhen Liang1 · Zhiguo Zhang1 · Gan Huang1

  • 1 School of Biomedical Engineering, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

Corresponding author: Gan Huang.

Cite this work
@inproceedings{wang2020real,
 author = {Wang, Xinyue and Hou, Shaohui and Zhang, Li and Li, Linling and Liang, Zhen and Zhang, Zhiguo and Huang, Gan},
 booktitle = {2020 9th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Science},
 pages = {65--70},
 title = {The Real Time EEG Phase Locked Feedback Control for Alpha Amplitude and Frequency Regulation: An OpenBCI Implementation},
 year = {2020},
 doi = {10.1145/3431943.3432284},
 url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3431943.3432284}
}