Jua Miguel Santos

Dr. Jua Miguel Santos


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

12Years (2015-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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16 November 2018 in Brain Sciences
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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RRRodrigo Ramele
Rodrigo Ramele
AVAna Julia Villar
Ana Julia Villar
JSJua Miguel Santos
Jua Miguel Santos
The Electroencephalography (EEG) is not just a mere clinical tool anymore. It has become the de-facto mobile, portable, non-invasive brain imaging sensor to harness brain information in real time. It is now being used to translate or decode brain signals, to diagnose diseases or to implement Brain Computer Interface (BCI) devices. The automatic decoding is mainly implemented by using quantitative algorithms to detect the cloaked information buried in the signal. However, clinical EEG is based intensively on waveforms and the structure of signal plots. Hence, the purpose of this work is to establish a bridge to fill this gap by reviewing and describing the procedures that have been used to detect patterns in the electroencephalographic waveforms, benchmarking them on a controlled pseudo-real dataset of a P300-Based BCI Speller and verifying their performance on a public dataset of a BCI Competition.

20 August 2024 in Brain Sciences
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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BABrian Ezequiel Ail
Brian Ezequiel Ail
RRRodrigo Ramele
Rodrigo Ramele
Juliana GambiniJuliana Gambini
Juliana Gambini
JSJua Miguel Santos
Jua Miguel Santos
This work proposes an intrinsically explainable, straightforward method to decode P300 waveforms from electroencephalography (EEG) signals, overcoming the black box nature of deep learning techniques. The proposed method allows convolutional neural networks to decode information from images, an area where they have achieved astonishing performance. By plotting the EEG signal as an image, it can be both visually interpreted by physicians and technicians and detected by the network, offering a straightforward way of explaining the decision. The identification of this pattern is used to implement a P300-based speller device, which can serve as an alternative communication channel for persons affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This method is validated by identifying this signal by performing a brain–computer interface simulation on a public dataset from ALS patients. Letter identification rates from the speller on the dataset show that this method can identify the P300 signature on the set of 8 patients. The proposed approach achieves similar performance to other state-of-the-art proposals while providing clinically relevant explainability (XAI).

7 December 2020 in IEEE Transactions on Games
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
BFBartolome Francisco
Bartolome Francisco
MJMoreno Juan
Moreno Juan
NNNavas Natalia
Navas Natalia
VJVitali Jose
Vitali Jose
RRRodrigo Ramele
Rodrigo Ramele
JSJua Miguel Santos
Jua Miguel Santos
Error-related potential (ErrP) are a particular type of Event-Related Potential (ERP) elicited by a person attending a recognizable error. These Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals can be used to train a gaming agent by a Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm to learn an optimal policy. The experimental process consists of an observational human critic (OHC) observing a simple game scenario while their brain signals are captured. The game consists of a grid, where a green spot has to reach a desired target in the fewest amount of steps. Results show that there is an effective transfer of information and that the agent successfully learns to solve the game efficiently, from the initial 97 steps on average required to reach the target to the optimal number of 8 steps. Our results are expressed in threefold: (i) the mechanics of a simple grid-based game that can elicit the ErrP signal component, (ii) the verification that the reward function only penalizes wrong steps, which means that type II error (not properly identifying a wrong movement) does not affect significantly the agent learning process; (iii) collaborative rewards from multiple observational human critics can be used to train the algorithm effectively and can compensate low classification accuracies and a limited scope of transfer learning schemes.

16 January 2023 in arXiv
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Preprint
Open access
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FPFranco Paviotti
Franco Paviotti
EBEsteban Buniak
Esteban Buniak
RRRodrigo Ramele
Rodrigo Ramele
OFOrestes Freixes
Orestes Freixes
JSJua Miguel Santos
Jua Miguel Santos
Stroke is a medical condition that can affect motor function, particularly dynamic balance. Biofeedback can aid in rehabilitation procedures which help patients to regain lost motor activity and recover functionality. In this work, we are presenting a robotic smart-vest device that can analyze Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data and assist in rehabilitation procedures by providing timed feedback in the form of vibrotactile stimulation. Information provided by principal caregivers and patients in the form of surveys and interviews, is used to hypothesize potential clinical causes and to derive alternative three alternative clinical modalities: Artificial Vestibular Feedback, Gait Pacemaker and Risk-Predictor.

12 October 2022 in arXiv
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Open access
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RRRodrigo Ramele
Rodrigo Ramele
AVAna Julia Villar
Ana Julia Villar
JSJua Miguel Santos
Jua Miguel Santos
This document provides some basic guidance to start working with the EPOC Emotiv neuroheadset device and describes how to use it to perform basic Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research. A brief tutorial on how to set up the device, from its electrophysiological point of view, as well as a description and practical code to perform some basic analysis, is explained. A basic experiment is introduced to detect one of the oldest and, indeed, quite still valuable electrophysiological correlate, visual occipital alpha waves, or Berger Rhythm. An additional experiment is expounded where the power spectrum of alpha waves is reduced when a subject is affected by background cognitive disturbances. This document also briefs about the extraction of information by using the EPOC Emotiv library and also with python Emokit package. This report presents a basic guide on how to use EEGLAB and MATLAB, as well as python stack to perform the neurophysiological analysis. Finally, a basic analysis on different feature extraction and classification methods is provided.