Assessment and Communication for People with Disorders of Consciousness

In this experiment, we demonstrate a suite of hybrid Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)-based paradigms that are designed for two applications: assessing the level of consciousness of people unable to provide motor response and, in a second stage, establishing a communication channel for these people that enables them to answer questions with either 'yes' or 'no'. The suite of paradigms is designed to test basic responses in the first step and to continue to more comprehensive tasks if the first tests are successful. The latter tasks require more cognitive functions, but they could provide communication, which is not possible with the basic tests. All assessment tests produce accuracy plots that show whether the algorithms were able to detect the patient's brain's response to the given tasks. If the accuracy level is beyond the significance level, we assume that the subject understood the task and was able to follow the sequence of commands presented via earphones to the subject. The tasks require users to concentrate on certain stimuli or to imagine moving either the left or right hand. All tasks are designed around the assumption that the user is unable to use the visual modality, and thus, all stimuli presented to the user (including instructions, cues, and feedback) are auditory or tactile.

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