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Assessment and Communication for People with Disorders of Consciousness
Published on: August 1, 2017
[Brain-computer interface technology and its applications for patients with disorders of consciousness]
Jiahui Pan1,2, Zhihang Zhang1, Yuanlin Zhang1
1School of Artificial Intelligence, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, P. R. China.
None:
With the continuous advancement of neuroimaging technologies, clinical research has discovered the phenomenon of cognitive-motor dissociation in patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC). This groundbreaking finding has provided new impetus for the development and application of brain-computer interface (BCI) in clinic. Currently, BCI has been widely applied in DoC patients as an important tool for assessing and assisting behaviorally unresponsive individuals. This paper reviews the current applications of BCI in DoC patients, focusing four main aspects including consciousness detection, auxiliary diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and rehabilitation treatment. It also provides an in-depth analysis of representative key techniques and experimental outcomes in each aspect, which include BCI paradigm designs, brain signal decoding method, and feedback mechanisms. Furthermore, the paper offers recommendations for BCI design tailored to DoC patients and discusses future directions for research and clinical practice in this field.

