BCI Timeline

Isaac Nóbrega Marinho

September 2021

1 Introduction
The History of BCIs starts with the creation of electroencephalography(EEG),
that was only possible due to Hans Berger’s work on reading the electrical sig-
nals produced by the human brain using electrodes placed in specific locations
of the scalp, being the first to record activity within the human brain in re-
sponse to various stimuli[1] thus giving birth to the concept of EEG, which is
stand to this date as one of the most used means of reading the electrical signals
produced by the brain activity. By 1929, Hans Berger published his findings on
his paper entitled ”das Elektrenkephalogramm”(Berger, 1929)[2], which means
”On the electroencephalogram in man”. The content of the paper disclosed two
types of brain waves, termed Alpha(later denominated as Berger’s wave) and
beta waves, being the first recording of Electroencephalography on humans.
Later on 1968, Kamiya showed with his studies that the alpha waves could be
controlled by human subjects after some previous training, marking the starting
point of the neurofeedback(Kamiya 1968, as cited in Lotte et al. 2018)[3][10]
field, a field that was, is and will be crucial for many more breakthroughs re-
garding BCI technology.
After that, in 1973, Jaques J. Vidal coined the term ”Brain-Computer Inter-
face”(Vidal 1973, as cited in Lotte et al. 2018)[4][10] and set the challenges
of controling objects using data from a human electroencephalogram and de-
veloping methods for extracting event-related potentials, other than standard
averaging method. Thus cementing his position as the inventor of BCIs amongst
his peers. Not long after that, Vidal himself made in 1977 the first step into
his challenges[5], being the first report on the control of an object, which was a
cursor-like object on a computer screen, with EEG gathered data.
Answering to the challenge made by Vidal years before, a report on the usage
of the alpha rhythm detected by EEG to control whether a mobile robot that
followed a line would move or stop moving(S. Bozinovski, M. Sestakov, L. Bozi-
novska, 1988)[6], a year later, these same researchers reported that Electroocu-
lography(EOG) signals are capable of being used to control external objects,
such as a robot’s movement[8]. Another noteworthy advance regarding BCIs
brought to life in 1988 was the p-300 speller (Farwell & Donchin, 1988)[7], a
BCI that proposed to spell letters based on event-related potentials.

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A couple of years later, Wolpaw and his colleagues developed a BCI for con-
trolling a 1D cursor based on operant conditioning(Wolpaw et al 1991, as cited
in Lotte et al. 2018)[9][10]. Using neurofeedback techniques, the users were
trained to self-regulate voluntarily the amplitude of their SMR activity in order
to move a ball up or down. Another noteworthy event in the BCI field was
the first international BCI meeting (Wolpaw et al 2000, as cited in Lotte et al.
2018)[11][10], where BCI research groups started to organize themselves as a
full research community, holding it’s first edition in 1999, which in the USA.
About 50 participants from 22 research groups joined the event. In the following
years, the Nicolelis’ group were the first to report and show that rats and later
primates could control a robotic arm using neural signals recorded directly from
their motor cortex neurons(Chapin et al, 1999, Nicolelis 2001, as cited in Lotte
et al. 2018), i.e, with an invasive BCI implanted inside their brains. BrainGate
is a brain implant system currently under development and clinical trials that
aims to help those who have lost control of their limbs or other body functions.
The first studies related to this project were carried out in 2002(Warwick et
al. 2003)[14]. In 2006, advances in partially invasive BCIs, devices implanted
inside the skull of the patients but outside their brain’s gray matter, were being
made, such as the work on Washington University in St. Louis, where a group
of researchers and engineers enabled a teenage boy to play the video game space
invaders, using Electrocorticographic(ECoG) activity read by an implant in the
surface of the teenager’s brain[15]. Over the last decades, one of the great-
est advances in the EEG applications has been the development and release of
consumer-grade EEG devices, which allow researchers to use EEG to acquire
data that was only possible inside the controlled space of a laboratory, expanding
the possibilities for the development of new cutting edge technology in the BCI
research field. One of the most notable consumer-oriented EEG devices com-
mercialized over the last decade is the EMOTIV EPOC, relesed to the market
as early as 2009[16]. The Mindwave, developed and released by NeuroSky is an-
other noteworthy consumer-oriented EEG device, released to the western market
in 2011, for the price of $99.50[17]. In 2013, the Obama government announced
the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies)
Initiative, that ”ultimately aims to help researchers find new ways to treat,
cure, and even prevent brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy,
and traumatic brain injury”(https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov)[18]. With
both public and private funding, the BRAIN Initiative helps with a plethora
of research projects involving the human brain, including researches in the BCI
field. In the next year, the results of a study showed that Functional near-
infrared spectroscopy to help ”locked-in” ALS pacients is a viable method to
restore communication in patients with complete locked-in syndrome(Gallegos-
Ayala et al, 2014)[19]. ”The BCI research field has been expanding drastically
in the recent years, both in size and scope”(Brunner et al, 2015, as cited in
Lotte et al, 2018)[20][10]. As a direct consequence of said growth, the Journal
”Brain-Computer Interfaces” was created in 2013 and it’s first issue was pub-
lished in the year of 2014. As another consequence of the growth of the BCI
field, The international BCI society was also created in the year of 2015.

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References
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[3] Kamiya J. Conscious control of brain waves, Psychology Today, 1(11) pp.
56-60, 1968
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1988
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[19] Brain communication in a completely locked-in patient using bedside
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[20] Brunner, C.; Birbaumer, N.; Blankertz, B.; Guger, C.; Kübler, A.; Mattia,
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Interfaces, Taylor & Francis, 2015, 1-10