Em. Maynard et al., THE UTAH INTRACORTICAL ELECTRODE ARRAY - A RECORDING STRUCTURE FOR POTENTIAL BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology, 102(3), 1997, pp. 228-239
We investigated the potential of the Utah Intracortical Electrode Arra
y (UIEA) to provide signals for a brain-computer interface (BCI). The
UIEA records from small populations of neurons which have an average s
ignal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 6:1. We provide specific examples that s
how the activities of these populations of neurons contain sufficient
information to perform control tasks. Results from a simple stimulus d
etection task using these signals as inputs confirm that the number of
neurons present in a recording is significant in determining task per
formance. Increasing the number of units in a recording decreases the
sensitivity of the response to the stimulus: decreasing the number of
units in the recording, however, increases the variability of the resp
onse to the stimulus. We conclude that recordings from small populatio
ns of neurons, not single units, provide a reliable source of sufficie
ntly stimulus selective signals which should be suitable for a BCI. In
addition, the potential for simultaneous and proportional control of
a large number of external devices may be realized through the ability
of an array of microelectrodes such as the UIEA to record both spatia
l and temporal patterns of neuronal activation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scie
nce Ireland Ltd.