Point-and-Click Cursor Control With an Intracortical Neural Interface System by Humans With Tetraplegia

2011

Article

ps

We present a point-and-click intracortical neural interface system (NIS) that enables humans with tetraplegia to volitionally move a 2D computer cursor in any desired direction on a computer screen, hold it still and click on the area of interest. This direct brain-computer interface extracts both discrete (click) and continuous (cursor velocity) signals from a single small population of neurons in human motor cortex. A key component of this system is a multi-state probabilistic decoding algorithm that simultaneously decodes neural spiking activity and outputs either a click signal or the velocity of the cursor. The algorithm combines a linear classifier, which determines whether the user is intending to click or move the cursor, with a Kalman filter that translates the neural population activity into cursor velocity. We present a paradigm for training the multi-state decoding algorithm using neural activity observed during imagined actions. Two human participants with tetraplegia (paralysis of the four limbs) performed a closed-loop radial target acquisition task using the point-and-click NIS over multiple sessions. We quantified point-and-click performance using various human-computer interaction measurements for pointing devices. We found that participants were able to control the cursor motion accurately and click on specified targets with a small error rate (< 3% in one participant). This study suggests that signals from a small ensemble of motor cortical neurons (~40) can be used for natural point-and-click 2D cursor control of a personal computer.

@article{Kim:NSRE:11,
  title = {Point-and-Click Cursor Control With an Intracortical Neural Interface System by Humans With Tetraplegia},
  author = {Kim, S.-P. and Simeral, J. D. and Hochberg, L. R. and Donoghue, J. P. and Friehs, G. M. and Black, M. J.},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering},
  volume = {19},
  number = {2},
  pages = {193--203},
  month = apr,
  year = {2011},
  doi = {},
  url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TNSRE.2011.2107750},
  month_numeric = {4}
}