Subject-oriented training for motor imagery brain-computer interfaces

Successful operation of motor imagery (MI)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) requires mutual adaptation between the human subject and the BCI. Traditional training methods, as well as more recent ones based on co-adaptation, have mainly focused on the machine-learning aspects of BCI training. This work presents a novel co-adaptive training protocol shifting the focus on subject-related performances and the optimal accommodation of the interactions between the two learning agents of the BCI loop. Preliminary results with 8 able-bodied individuals demonstrate that the proposed method has been able to bring 3 naive users into control of a MI BCI within a few runs and to improve the BCI performances of 3 experienced BCI users by an average of 0.36 bits/sec.