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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience pp 1–13Cite as

Noninvasive Brain-Computer Interfaces

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Synonyms

Noninvasive brain-machine interface

Definition

A noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI) is a device that allows users to send messages or commands to devices, friends, family, or others through direct, noninvasive measures of brain activity.

Introduction

BCIs are communication and control systems that do not depend on the brain’s normal output pathways such as peripheral nerves and muscles (Wolpaw et al. 2002). Hence, BCIs provide alternate methods to interact with the outside world not only for healthy people (Allison et al. 2007; Guger et al. 2009; Blankertz et al. 2010) but also for patients who cannot use their muscles but are cognitively intact (Nam et al. 2012; Sellers et al. 2010).

Noninvasive BCIs record information from sensors placed on or very close to the head. No surgery is required to implant recording devices, and noninvasive BCIs do not use any painful or hazardous methods. The most common BCI recording mechanism is the electroencephalogram (EEG), which...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA

    Brendan Z. Allison & Dean Krusienski

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  1. Brendan Z. Allison
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  2. Dean Krusienski
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Correspondence to Brendan Z. Allison .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Allison, B.Z., Krusienski, D. (2014). Noninvasive Brain-Computer Interfaces. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_707-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_707-1

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