How different immersive environments affect intracortical brain computer interfaces

As brain-computer interface (BCI) research advances, many new applications are being developed. Tasks can be performed in different environments, and whether a BCI user can switch environments seamlessly will influence the ultimate utility of a clinical device. Here we investigate the importance of the immersiveness of the virtual environment used to train BCI decoders on the resulting decoder and its generalizability between environments. Two participants who had intracortical electrodes implanted in their precentral gyrus used a BCI to control a virtual arm, either viewed immersively through virtual reality goggles or at a distance on a flat television monitor. Each participant performed better with a decoder trained and tested in the environment they had used the most prior to the study, one for each environment type. The neural tuning to the desired movement was minimally influenced by the immersiveness of the environment. Finally, in further testing with one of the participants, we found that decoders trained in one environment generalized well to the other environment, but the order in which the environments were experienced within a session mattered. Overall, experience with an environment was more influential on performance than the immersiveness of the environment, but BCI performance generalized well after accounting for experience.