How different immersive environments affect intracortical brain computer interfaces.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Rehabilitation Engineering

Background:

• Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology is advancing, leading to new clinical applications.
• Seamless environment switching is crucial for BCI utility in diverse settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the impact of virtual environment immersiveness on BCI decoder training and generalizability.
• Determine if virtual reality (VR) or monitor-based training yields better BCI performance.

Main Methods:

• Two participants with intracortical electrodes trained BCI decoders using a virtual arm in VR and monitor environments.
• Assessed decoder performance and neural tuning in relation to environment immersiveness and prior experience.

Main Results:

• Participants performed better with decoders trained in their most-used environment, regardless of immersiveness.
• Neural tuning was minimally affected by environment immersiveness.
• Decoders generalized between environments, but the order of experience within a session influenced performance.

Conclusions:

• Prior experience with a BCI training environment is more critical than its immersiveness for performance.
• BCI performance generalizes well across different virtual environments when accounting for user experience.