A low-cost, open-source, BCI-VR prototype for real-time signal processing of EEG to manipulate 3D VR objects as a form of neurofeedback

In this paper we present a low-cost and open-source brain-computer interface (BCI) virtual-reality (VR) prototype for real-time signal processing of Electroencephalography (EEG) event-related desynchronization and synchronization changes (ERD/ERS) within the Precentral Gyrus (Motor Cortex), which allows the user to manipulate a 3D object within a Virtual Reality Environment as a form of immersive neurofeedback. This BCI-VR system prototype was functionally tested on multiple participants and demonstrated live before an audience during the 2017 ‘Hack the Brain’ at the Dublin Science Gallery. The availability of a low cost, effective, BCI-VR solution targeted at researchers and developers, which is capable of analysing a subject’s BCI performance and presenting neurofeedback VR to a level acceptable for academic and industry experimentation, has the potential to open up this field to much wider range of researchers and could help increase the functional outcomes for stroke rehabilitation.