Category Archives: Brain-Computer Interface (BCI and BMI)

Music and Inter-brain Synchrony (IBS)

Quite a good article this is on Music synchronizes brainwaves across listeners. Music creates engagement between people. People exposed to music (especially live music) can cause much inter-subject correlation of various neural responses. Also consider this article on Interactions in the classroom which studies group interactions and brain synchrony.

Inter-Brain Synchronization

Inter brain synchrony (IBS) has been observed in many social interactions. IBS has been observed between people in:  heart beat, music performance and listening, brain waves, video gamers, movie watching, duetting pianists, team collaboration,  team work with two aircraft pilots, child-mother relationship and other activities people do together. In most cases researches have observed the IBS behavior by using fMRI or EEG.

Inter-Brain Synchronization during Social Interaction  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2923151/  

The Brains of people playing online video games synchronize, even when there is a physical distance between the players.    https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-sync-distance-21330/.     

Post-Memory Acquisition Sleep and Memory Recall

Transient bursts of activity such as hippocampal ripple oscillations, amygdala high-frequency oscillations, and prefrontal cortical ripple oscillations are used in the brain to make memory “stick” to current memories. See the article at Memory Is Formed Through Rewiring of Global Network Among Pre-existing Local Neuronal Ensembles

Brain waves, Sharp-wave Ripples, SWRs from low intensity electrical stimulation

Some brain waves look like Sharp-wave Ripples, these are sometimes called SWR’s.

SWRs can be evoked by low intensity electrical stimulation, and at lower intensities than those needed to evoke detectable population spikes. In addition, evoked SWRs show large variability in amplitude, similar to that of spontaneous events.  See more at:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862867/

Hippocampal sharp-wave ripples (SPW-Rs) support consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories and planning future actions by generating ordered neuronal sequences of previous or future experiences.  See more at:   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6310484/

Interface Technology for the Brain

Today people are developing technology to interface directly with the brain. One of the more safe ones (besides just a keyboard and mouse) is EEG (ElectroEncephaloGram). With EEG electrical probes are attached to the head on the surface. These connections are wired to a pre-amplifier or instrument amplifier, digitized and feed into a PC or Mac computer for analysis.

Several very low frequency brain waves have been discovered. The waves are actually radio waves (electro-magnetic) but the magnetic component is so small that just the electrical component is picked up.

Here is a few great articles:
Brain Computer Interfaces
Interface Tech for the Brain
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EEG, BMI — Imaginary Movements

EEG Classification of Different Imaginary Movements within the Same Limb…Great article highliting the importance of goal-oriented imaginary in the bio-feedback loop.

Fully Online Multicommand Brain-Computer Interface with Visual Neurofeedback Using SSVEP Paradigm

Neural coding of basic reward terms of animal learning theory

Brain-computer interfaces: a powerful tool for scientific inquiry