Brain machine interfaces: powerful tools for clinical treatment and neuroscientific investigations

Brain machine interfaces (BMIs) provide a direct link between the brain and a computer, usually to control an external device. BMIs have a wide array of potential clinical applications, ranging from restoring communication to people unable to speak due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or a stroke, to restoring movement to people with paralysis from spinal cord injury or motor neuron disease, to restoring memory to people with cognitive impairment. Because BMIs are controlled directly by the activity of pre-specified neurons or cortical areas, they also provide a powerful paradigm with which to investigate fundamental questions about brain physiology, including neuronal behavior, learning, and the role of oscillations.

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  Intracortical BMIs display the most promise for replacing function, but they also face several barriers to clinical translation, including the development of completely-implantable and wireless devices, power consumption and storage, and signal longevity and stability.
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  BMIs have enabled the confirmation that the primary motor cortex in paralyzed humans is tuned to imagined hand movement kinematics.
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  A biomimetic BMI using MSPs was shown to provide largely stable performance for about 6 months without recalibrating the decoder, while one using LFPs remained stable over a year.