A high-performance brain-computer interface for finger decoding and quadcopter game control in an individual with paralysis

People with paralysis express unmet needs for peer support, leisure activities, and sporting activities. Many within the general population rely on social media and massively multiplayer video games to address these needs. We developed a high-performance finger brain-computer-interface system allowing continuous control of 3 independent finger groups, of which the thumb can be controlled in 2 dimensions, yielding a total of 4 degrees of freedom (DOF). The system was tested in a human research participant over sequential trials requiring fingers to reach and hold on targets, with an average acquisition rate of 76 targets/minute and completion time of 1.58 ± 0.06 seconds – comparing favorably to prior animal studies despite a 2-fold increase in the decoded DOF. More importantly, finger positions were then used to control a virtual quadcopter – the number one restorative priority for the participant – using a novel finger-based brain-computer interface to allow dexterous navigation around fixed- and random-ringed obstacle courses. The data needed for an offline analysis to reproduce the key findings is available here.