BrainTalk Project


BRAIN TALK: OPEN SOURCE BRAIN MACHINE INTERFACE

People with paralysis (especially tetraplegia) are in a very difficult situation.

Their loss of self dependence becomes even worse with their severe impairement of talking capability.

Several attempts have been made to allow these people to communicate with others.

I have been working some time now on a project that will offer these people a chance to communicate with cheap, commercially available, devices through a Brain to Machine Interface (B.M.I.)

I am offering this project to other programmers for free as an open source project. The vision is to create a cheap brain computer interface for disabled people. Initially it can be used for fun only to test this new type of computer interfaces.

 

WHAT IS BRAIN TALK PROJECT

BRAIN TALK consists of two parts:

1) THE VIRTUAL KEYBOARD

The core of this project is to take advantage of a relatively cheap and easy to use EMOTIV system in order to use a virtual keyboard that will allow people to type on a computer screen by triggering from specific EEG events.

The Virtual Keyboard’s buttons flash in a horizontal and then vertical fashion. The frequency of flashing can be modulated by the user. The transparency of the virtual keyboard is also user defined.

When a user defined key is pressed then the horizontal flashing is changed to vertical flashing on the keyboard. When this key is pressed again, the letter is passed to the open window for e.g. Mozilla Firefox. If an error is being done in the choice of horizontal to vertical flashing transition, then there is a user defined key to reset flashing.  By using a website like write  http://www.writebigletters.com/ this virtual keyboard can be used as a typing communication device.

Virtual keyboard can be used to write numbers and letters and also has caps lock, backspace and enter button.

Click here to watch a video with the virtual keyboard in action:

or watch it below in YouTube:

 

2) THE EMOTIV SYSTEM PART

The Emotiv system is Brain to Machine interface that packs a lot of power in the end user in a relatively low price. Click here to go to EMOTIV official site.

The EEG signal is recorded from saline receptors (no special gel is needed). The emotiv system has built in detection algorithms for specific neuro and muscular events that can be user specific with training. The training curve for the Emotiv system is relatively quick.

Moreover, the EMOTIV platform has built in the EmoKey application with which the user can correlate specific EMOTIV detections with keystrokes!

The whole BRAIN TALK project is based on this combination of a virtual keyboard along with an EMOTIV EmoKey application and specific EEG events that will trigger keystrokes on the virtual keyboard!.

I have used BRAIN TALK to send my first tweet with Twitter, composed solely with the help of  my Brain Waves.

BRAIN TALK PROJECT IN TWO LINES

EEG PATTERN–> DETECTION FROM EMOTIV–> KEYSTROKE FROM EMOKEY–>PASSING TO VIRTUAL KEYBOARD–>PASS OF KEYSTROKE  TO WINDOWS NATIVE DEVICE.

I am inviting programmers to help me develop it a lot further. Please send me your improvements or suggestions through this blog comments, contact form of the blog and at louizos@gen.auth.gr

I also invite people with experience in EEG and programming to help me test the platform and refine it more.

If the vision of creating a cheap Brain Computer Interface for the impaired is fulfilled it will be one of the happiest moments of my life…

Sincerely yours,

Louizos Alexander Louizos, MSc, MD

L.A.>

 

BRAIN TALK OPEN SOURCE PROJECT


BRAIN TALK VIRTUAL KEYBOARD USER INSTRUCTIONS

The Virtual Keyboard of Brain Talk

Unzip the rar file. The files should be in the same folder in order for the application to work. Run the executable. The Virtual Keyboard opens and starts flashing. In order to change settings press and hold Ctrl. Click on settings. A new window opens.

Brain Talk Settings

You may customize from this window the flashing period of rows and columns, the opacity of the window, the control (default 1), the reset (default 2), the activate key (default Ctrl), the Window background color and the Letters foreground color.

If you wish to move the window while it is running, keep Ctrl pressed and click on the keyboard with your mouse and move it. The size and position of your keyboard will be automatically saved upon exit.

The target application for the Virtual Keyboard’s keystrokes should be open in front of the transparent keyboard and active.

The Emotiv Part of Brain Talk

Open your control panel and make the necessary connections to have good signals from your EMOTIV.

Open Emokey application and link the control key of the virtual keyboard to whatever EMOTIV detection you want. Leave the target application to “application in focus”. You may also link another EMOTIV detection to the Virtual Keyboard’s reset key.

Emokey Set up for Brain Talk

Choose connect to Control Panel and you are ready to send your first tweet with Brain Talk!

Enjoy and please share your changes!

Sincerely yours,

Louizos Alexander Louizos, MSc, MD.

myphoto

PLEASE DONATE TO KEEP BRAIN TALK PROJECT ALIVE.

Click Here

  • hoxon

    Hey man, have you ever seen a LIS patient? Do you know that people with locked-in syndrome can't move any muscles? How could they use the Emotiv that rely ONLY on the movement of muscles to give commands? Oh yeah the Emotiv can also record some EEG signal, but unfortunately you cannot use it for controlling. Your effort is appreciable, but please don't say that paralyzed people can use it.

  • http://www.forexrobotscoach-louizos.com L.A. Louizos

    Thank you for your comment,

    According to latest edition of EMOTIV one can use abstract commands like “push” or “pull” that need no muscle movements in order to send commands to specific keystrokes with emokey. The problem there will be the velocity of response that will render typing very slow.

    Moreover, any team can create an more advanced that EMOTIV EEG detection system with no muscle movements and use the virtual keyboard of BrainTalk,

    BrainTalk is not a panacea for a Brain Computer Interface. It is just a descent effort of mine to help some people with tetraplegia or other forms of paralysis that do not have access to very expensive commercial BMI devices (at least 13.000$ for one).

    Or it can be used just for fun from EMOTIV users…..for example I used it to tweet with EMOTIV only.

    The state of the art for a Brain Computer Interface for people with paralysis is below:

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371...

    This is a work of excellence.

    Brain Talk is just an open source platform for a demonstration of the potential of Brain Machine Interfaces that are coming to change our life.

    Thank you

    L.A>

  • hoxon

    Mmm…I don't know according to them (http://www.emotiv.com/researchers/). there's no electrodes on the motor cortex, these are the channels: AF3, F7, F3, FC5, T7, P7, O1, O2, P8, T8, FC6, F4, F8, AF4. I worked with motor imagery and BCI and it's really difficult to let it works. And it's really easy to having it working with a non motor channel, that means, it's a muscle artifact. I'm not blaming your project (I really would like to try it), but I'd really like to try this Emotiv product and check what is really capable of.
    I think that for people with tetraplegia could be a solution, but I would strongly suggest to don't say that people with locked-in syndrome can use it.
    I guess you have an Emotiv. Did you ever worked with EEG (a real one)? I'd really like to have some impressions.

  • http://www.nanotechgalaxy.com Louizos Alexander

    Thank you again for your reply and interaction.

    You are absolutely right in your comment about locked in syndrome. In fact in this primary version of this project it is even premature to talk about people with paralysis.

    Emotiv is a good platform and a cheap non professional solution to EEG with saline receptors.
    I worked with a real EEG cap in an early work of mine below:

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=Articl...

    I am sure that the full potential of a BMI may be realized only with full EEG, but this is uncomfortable.

    Maybe an EMG with one electrode device along with a MATLAB real time signal processing set up would be best fit for the use of Brain Talk.

    I am open to any suggestions and I really appreciate your feedback.

    L.A>

  • hoxon

    Yes, probably I would suggest to focus more your work on EMG (Emotiv can do that). I never saw personally an Emotiv device so I can't really tell how good is on EEG and how reliable is the signal. I really would like to see a serious comparison. It's not too much money but in this moment I don't have a budget for it, otherwise I would do it.

  • CK Loo

    Thanks for the Brain Talk project. The link to download the sourcecodes is lost. Please kindly advise.

    Thanks.

  • NanoL.A.

    Sorry for this. Link to source code download repaired.

    Thank you

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