The best BCIs are in a lab, connected to wet electrodes - it’s messy, it’s really a non-starter. He ran down the difficulties: “With a read-only system, the way EEG is used today is no good other headsets have slow sample rates and they’re not accurate enough for a real-time interface. Image Credits: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images But it was far from a breakthrough.Ī modern lab with an EEG cap wired to a receiver and laptop - this is an example of how EEG is commonly used. They were looking into alternative methods of letting a person control an on-screen cursor, among them an accelerometer for detecting head movements, and tried integrating EEG readings as another signal. He first used EEG for assistive purposes in a research study some five years ago. It made Andreas Forsland, co-founder and CEO of Cognixion, curious about further possibilities for the venerable technology: “Could a brain-computer interface using EEG be a viable communication system?” Yet even among those with the most profound physical disabilities, cognition is often unimpaired - as indeed EEG studies have helped demonstrate. And of course you have to wear a shower cap wired with electrodes (often greasy with conductive gel) - it’s not the kind of thing anyone wants to do for more than an hour, let alone all day every day. But while they’re useful in medicine and research in many ways, EEGs are noisy and imprecise - more for finding which areas of the brain are active than, say, which sub-region of the sensory cortex or the like. One of the tools in the toolbox is the electroencephalogram, or EEG, which involves detecting activity in the brain via patches on the scalp that record electrical signals. Some of the most dated interfaces, unfortunately, are those used by people with the most serious limitations: those whose movements are limited to their heads, faces, eyes - or even a single eyelid, like Jean-Dominique Bauby, the famous author of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” But many of these techs and interfaces are years or decades old - medical equipment that hasn’t been updated for an era of smartphones and high-speed mobile connections. Everyone with a motor impairment has different needs and capabilities, and there are a variety of assistive technologies that cater to many of these needs.