The Estimation of Cortical Activity for Brain-Computer Interface: Applications in a Domotic Context

Correspondence should be addressed to D. Mattia, d.mattia@hsantalucia.itReceived 18 February 2007; Revised 8 June 2007; Accepted 4 July 2007Recommended by Andrzej CichockiIn order to analyze whether the use of the cortical activity, estimated from noninvasive EEG recordings, could be useful to detectmental states related to the imagination of limb movements, we estimate cortical activity from high-resolution EEG recordingsin a group of healthy subjects by using realistic head models. Such cortical activity was estimated in region of interest associatedwith the subject’s Brodmann areas by using a depth-weighted minimum norm technique. Results showed that the use of thecortical-estimated activity instead of the unprocessed EEG improves the recognition of the mental states associated to the limbmovementimaginationinthegroupofnormalsubjects.TheBCImethodologypresentedherehasbeenusedinagroupofdisabledpatients in order to give them a suitable control of several electronic devices disposed in a three-room environment devoted tothe neurorehabilitation. Four of six patients were able to control several electronic devices in this domotic context with the BCIsystem.Copyright © 2007 F. Babiloni et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.