BCIs: Traditional Assumptions Meet Emerging Realities

BCI research has demonstrated the feasibility of direct communication and control with several distinct brain signals. But useful BCI applications that can benefit more than a small number of individuals await improvements in the speed and accuracy of this technology. It is widely assumed that BCI technology is simply a matter of decoding brain signals. However the characteristics of these brain signals differ markedly so that a single approach is not likely to apply to all of them. In addition, all of these signal reflect intermediate processing rather than the intended final output of the brain.