Left and right hand motor imagery electroencephalogram (MI-EEG) signals are widely used in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems to identify a participant intent in controlling external devices. However, due to a series of reasons, including low signal-to-noise ratios, there are great challenges for efficient motor imagery classification. The recognition of left and right hand MI-EEG signals is vital for the application of BCI systems. Recently, the method of deep learning has been successfully applied in pattern recognition and other fields. However, there are few effective deep learning algorithms applied to BCI systems, particularly for MI based BCI. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that combines continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and a simplified convolutional neural network (SCNN) to improve the recognition rate of MI-EEG signals. Using the CWT, the MI-EEG signals are mapped to time-frequency image signals. Then the image signals are input into the SCNN to extract the features and classify them. Tested by the BCI Competition IV Dataset 2b, the experimental results show that the average classification accuracy of the nine subjects is 83.2%, and the mean kappa value is 0.651, which is 11.9% higher than that of the champion in the BCI Competition IV. Compared with other algorithms, the proposed CWT-SCNN algorithm has a better classification performance and a shorter training time. Therefore, this algorithm could enhance the classification performance of MI based BCI and be applied in real-time BCI systems for use by disabled people.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a crucial and widely utilized technique in neuroscience research. In this paper, we introduce a novel graph neural network called the spatial-temporal graph attention network with a transformer encoder (STGATE) to learn graph representations of emotion EEG signals and improve emotion recognition performance. In STGATE, a transformer-encoder is applied for capturing time-frequency features which are fed into a spatial-temporal graph attention for emotion classification. Using a dynamic adjacency matrix, the proposed STGATE adaptively learns intrinsic connections between different EEG channels. To evaluate the cross-subject emotion recognition performance, leave-one-subject-out experiments are carried out on three public emotion recognition datasets, i.e., SEED, SEED-IV, and DREAMER. The proposed STGATE model achieved a state-of-the-art EEG-based emotion recognition performance accuracy of 90.37% in SEED, 76.43% in SEED-IV, and 76.35% in DREAMER dataset, respectively. The experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed STGATE model for cross-subject EEG emotion recognition and its potential for graph-based neuroscience research.

The electroencephalogram (EEG) signal in the brain–computer interface (BCI) has suffered great cross-subject variability. The BCI system needs to be retrained before each time it is used, which is a waste of resources and time. Thus, it is difficult to generalize a fixed classification method for all subjects. Therefore, the transfer learning method proposed in this article, which combines XDAWN spatial filter and Riemannian Geometry classifier (RGC), can achieve offline cross-subject transfer learning in the P300-speller paradigm. The XDAWN spatial filter is used to enhanced the P300 components in the raw signal as well as reduce its dimensions. Then, the Riemannian Geometry Mean (RGM) is used as the reference matrix to perform the affine transformation of the symmetric positive definite (SPD) covariance matrix calculated from the filtered signal, which makes the data from different subjects comparable. Finally, the RGC is used to obtain the result of transfer learning experiments. The proposed algorithm was evaluated on two datasets (Dataset I from real patients and Dataset II from the laboratory). By comparing with two state-of-the-art and classic algorithms in the current BCI field, Ensemble of Support Vector Machine (E-SVM) and Stepwise Linear Discriminant Analysis (SWLDA), the maximum averaged area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) score of our algorithm reached 0.836, proving the potential of our proposed algorithm.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have been widely used in emotion recognition. However, the current EEG-based emotion recognition has low accuracy of emotion classification, and its real-time application is limited. In order to address these issues, in this paper, we proposed an improved feature selection algorithm to recognize subjects’ emotion states based on EEG signal, and combined this feature selection method to design an online emotion recognition brain-computer interface (BCI) system. Specifically, first, different dimensional features from the time-domain, frequency domain, and time-frequency domain were extracted. Then, a modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) method with multi-stage linearly-decreasing inertia weight (MLDW) was purposed for feature selection. The MLDW algorithm can be used to easily refine the process of decreasing the inertia weight. Finally, the emotion types were classified by the support vector machine classifier. We extracted different features from the EEG data in the DEAP data set collected by 32 subjects to perform two offline experiments. Our results showed that the average accuracy of four-class emotion recognition reached 76.67%. Compared with the latest benchmark, our proposed MLDW-PSO feature selection improves the accuracy of EEG-based emotion recognition. To further validate the efficiency of the MLDW-PSO feature selection method, we developed an online two-class emotion recognition system evoked by Chinese videos, which achieved good performance for 10 healthy subjects with an average accuracy of 89.5%. The effectiveness of our method was thus demonstrated.

Goal: P300 spellers are among the most popular types of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and are extremely useful assistive devices that enable severely disabled patients to communicate. However, P300 speller performances should be further improved to translate laboratory designs into practical applications. We aimed to design a new speller paradigm that could evoke higher event-related potentials (ERPs) than traditional P300 spellers, thus improving the performance of BCI systems. Methods: We proposed a new P300 speller paradigm based on three-dimensional (3-D) stereo visual stimuli. In this paradigm, flashing buttons are presented in 3-D stereo form. We designed two experiments, one that tested a traditional two-dimensional (2-D) speller and another that tested the proposed 3-D speller. Twelve healthy volunteers participated in our experiments. We compared the ERPs elicited by the 2-D speller and the 3-D speller, and we also compared the classification accuracy, information transfer rate (ITR), and user workload between the two paradigms. Results: The 3-D P300 speller elicited higher amplitudes of P300 waveforms than the traditional 2-D P300 speller. The online experimental results showed that the classification accuracy and the ITR were significantly improved with the 3-D P300 speller. We also found that the user workload of the 3-D P300 speller was significantly lower than that of the 2-D P300 speller. Conclusion : The proposed 3-D P300 speller based on stereo visual stimuli outperformed a traditional 2-D P300 speller. This finding indicates that our 3-D paradigm offers a new method that will improve the performance of P300 BCI systems.

In addition to helping develop products that aid the disabled, brain–computer interface (BCI) technology can also become a modality of entertainment for all people. However, most BCI games cannot be widely promoted due to the poor control performance or because they easily cause fatigue. In this paper, we propose a P300 brain–computer-interface game (MindGomoku) to explore a feasible and natural way to play games by using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in a practical environment. The novelty of this research is reflected in integrating the characteristics of game rules and the BCI system when designing BCI games and paradigms. Moreover, a simplified Bayesian convolutional neural network (SBCNN) algorithm is introduced to achieve high accuracy on limited training samples. To prove the reliability of the proposed algorithm and system control, 10 subjects were selected to participate in two online control experiments. The experimental results showed that all subjects successfully completed the game control with an average accuracy of 90.7% and played the MindGomoku an average of more than 11 min. These findings fully demonstrate the stability and effectiveness of the proposed system. This BCI system not only provides a form of entertainment for users, particularly the disabled, but also provides more possibilities for games.