Identifying Thematics in a Brain‐Computer Interface Research

Abstract

This umbrella review is motivated to understand the shift in research themes on brain-computer interfacing (BCI) and it determined that a shift away from themes that focus on medical advancement and system development to applications that included education, marketing, gaming, safety, and security has occurred. The background of this review examined aspects of BCI categorisation, neuroimaging methods, brain control signal classification, applications, and ethics. The specific area of BCI software and hardware development was not examined. A search using One Search was undertaken and 92 BCI reviews were selected for inclusion. Publication demographics indicate the average number of authors on review papers considered was 4.2 ± 1.8. The results also indicate a rapid increase in the number of BCI reviews from 2003, with only three reviews before that period, two in 1972, and one in 1996. While BCI authors were predominantly Euro-American in early reviews, this shifted to a more global authorship, which China dominated by 2020–2022. The review revealed six disciplines associated with BCI systems: life sciences and biomedicine (n = 42), neurosciences and neurology (n = 35), and rehabilitation (n = 20); (2) the second domain centred on the theme of functionality: computer science (n = 20), engineering (n = 28) and technology (n = 38). There was a thematic shift from understanding brain function and modes of interfacing BCI systems to more applied research novel areas of research-identified surround artificial intelligence, including machine learning, pre-processing, and deep learning. As BCI systems become more invasive in the lives of “normal” individuals, it is expected that there will be a refocus and thematic shift towards increased research into ethical issues and the need for legal oversight in BCI application.

East Asian perspective of responsible research and innovation in neurotechnology

“…The reason for this is that basic research on BCI has been accumulated over many years as a fundamental technology for Neurotechnology, and the term BCI has been included in the guidance by FDA-CDHR as well as in the consideration of industrial standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In this study, a bibliometric analysis of scholarly articles on BCI research in the Scopus data from 1982 to August 2022 ( Maiseli et al, 2023 ) and a survey study on bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed review articles on BCI research extracted using One Search, a data mining tool that accesses 252 databases including BioOne, Google Scholar, JSTOR, ProQuest, and PubMed ( Alharbi, 2023 ) were referenced. The former is suitable for identifying general trends in BCI research for one of the world's largest scientific literature databases, while the latter is for peer-reviewed review articles extracted from a variety of scientific literature databases to identify trends in the countries including group of researchers with higher expertise and broader knowledge of BCI research.…”

“…While the number of academic papers published in China has been steadily increasing, Korea and Japan have shown a slowing trend in recent years, and Korea was to fall behind India in 2022. Table 2 summarizes the total number of academic papers based on Scopus data on BCI research ( Maiseli et al, 2023 ) and review articles extracted based on bibliographic data in One Search ( Alharbi, 2023 ), by country. While Japan has a relatively large number of academic papers published, it is surprising that the number of review papers published zero, as reported in Alharbi's paper ( 2023 ).…”

“…Table 2 summarizes the total number of academic papers based on Scopus data on BCI research ( Maiseli et al, 2023 ) and review articles extracted based on bibliographic data in One Search ( Alharbi, 2023 ), by country. While Japan has a relatively large number of academic papers published, it is surprising that the number of review papers published zero, as reported in Alharbi's paper ( 2023 ). According to the publication of review papers, China has a remarkably high number of publications among Asian countries, followed by Korea, India, and Taiwan.…”

“…According to the publication of review papers, China has a remarkably high number of publications among Asian countries, followed by Korea, India, and Taiwan. Regarding the countries of authorship of review papers, there was a bias toward North America and Europe until 2010, but after 2010, the number of authors expanded to Asia, Australia, and Latin America ( Alharbi, 2023 ). These trends, together with the fact that the number of academic papers published in Asian countries increased in the 2010 s in the analysis by Maiseli's group ( 2023 ), are considered to support the fact that globalization as academic research on BCI was taking place in the 2010 s

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“…and with the cooperation of the clinical medicines. In the early 2000 s, BCI with unit recording reached the stage of clinical research ( Hochberg, et al, 2006 ), then through the 2010 s, applied research using BCI and research on improving and upgrading elemental technologies such as sensing, signal processing and decoding became popular ( Alharbi, 2023 , Kawala-Sterniuk et al, 2021 , Maiseli et al, 2023 , Saha et al, 2021 ). Around the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health (FDA-CDHR) initiated a study to prepare for an approval review of BCI based on its practical feasibility in clinical practice ( Bowsher et al, 2016 ); the FDA-CDHR issued “leap-frog” guidance in May 2021 with recommendations for the design of nonclinical and clinical testing using BCI devices for patients with paralysis or amputation ( Department of Health and Human Services et al, 2021 ), also see https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/statement-fda-commissioner-scott-gottlieb-md-efforts-spur-development-innovative-devices-including ).…”