Feasibility of decoding cerebellar movement-related potentials for brain-computer interface applications

Objective.In brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, signals are conventionally acquired from the cerebrum, and only a subset of the complex interactions that occur in several areas of the brain are collected. One area that has not been investigated for BCI application is the cerebellum, despite its involvement in movement and executive function. The present study aimed to determine the features of movement-related cerebellar electrocerebellography (ECeG) that are most useful for decoding, and how performance compares with conventional electroencephalography (EEG) recordings from the cerebrum.Approach.ECeG and EEG data were collected from six healthy adults to identify useful movement-related features from both cerebrum and cerebellum. Electromyography was used to capture the movements from the muscles. Decoding was conducted in binary movement vs. rest and movement vs. movement systems using support vector machines. Decoding performance was compared between cerebral, cerebellar, a combination of both, and temporal groups. Re-referencing techniques were applied to compensate for possible common reference artefacts or volume conduction effects.Main results. Movement-related features were decoded from over the cerebellum and the cerebrum. Classification accuracies were similar in both the cerebrum and cerebellum, when classifying movement vs. rest (cerebrum: 0.78 ± 0.02, cerebellum: 0.70 ± 0.01) and movement vs. movement states (cerebrum: 0.76 ± 0.02, cerebellum: 0.71 ± 0.02). The delta band (1-3 Hz) was the most useful feature for decoding.Significance.This study demonstrated, for the first time, that ECeG is a feasible source of movement related signals for implementing a BCI. The present study also demonstrated that the ECeG closely resembled the EEG signals and represents an alternate approach for BCI where the signal from the cerebrum is unreliable either due to disease or injury.