30+ years of P300 brain–computer interfaces

Abstract

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) directly measure brain activity with no physical movement and translate the neural signals into messages. BCIs that employ the P300 event‐related brain potential often have used the visual modality. The end user is presented with flashing stimuli that indicate selections for communication, control, or both. Counting each flash that corresponds to a specific target selection while ignoring other flashes will elicit P300s to only the target selection. P300 BCIs also have been implemented using auditory or tactile stimuli. P300 BCIs have been used with a variety of applications for severely disabled end users in their homes without frequent expert support. P300 BCI research and development has made substantial progress, but challenges remain before these tools can become practical devices for impaired patients and perhaps healthy people.

50+ years of P300: Where are we now?

“…The review category contains didactic reports that will be of considerable utility for P300 researchers in many areas. Allison, Kübler, and Jin (2020) tell the fascinating story of Brain‐Computer Interfaces from the beginning to contemporary approaches. The technical story is amazingly intricate and reflects dedicated P300 science that already is changing many lives for the better.…”

Summary of over Fifty Years with Brain-Computer Interfaces—A Review

“…One of the most important and the first BCI application enabling communication are spellers, which are meant for subjects unable to speak. Spellers can be P300-, SSVEP-or motor imagery-based (event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS)) [96,[110][111][112][113]. Despite being very basic, they are able to provide some kind of independence for patients, who are unable to communicate in any way, such those with the ALS or locked-in patients [96,112,[114][115][116].…”

“…Spellers can be P300-, SSVEP-or motor imagery-based (event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS)) [96,[110][111][112][113]. Despite being very basic, they are able to provide some kind of independence for patients, who are unable to communicate in any way, such those with the ALS or locked-in patients [96,112,[114][115][116]. This is because most of the BCI paradigms rely on Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), such as among the others P300 and SSVEP [114,115,117,118].…”

“…The P300 can apply either standard (passive) or "oddball" paradigms (uncommon, unconventional stimulus) [120,121]. The use of P300 BCI requires very little user-training, which makes it easy to apply [18,112,116].…”

“…It is based on rare stimuli, which occur as a positive deflection 300 ms after it [116,117]. P300-based spellers require patient to choose appropriate character from a 6 × 6 or 5 × 5 matrix [112,114,116] or to control a wheelchair [117]. Another interesting P300 application is mouse emulation device (MED) for users with cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) with the accuracy of 82% and response time below 149 s. The study participants showed interest in using such BCI application on a regular basis [122].…”