Annual BCI Research Award

The Annual BCI Research Award is an annual accolade to recognize excellence in the field of brain-computer interface (BCI) research. The award is open to any person or group in any country. Each year, a different institute known for BCI research is chosen to host the award.

This institute selects a jury from established researchers within the BCI community, which selects ten nominees and then a winner. All ten nominees are invited and expected to submit chapters that summarize their submission to the Award, subsequent progress, and future directions. These chapters are then collected in a book with a major publisher, which also includes an introduction and conclusion with summary information.

The winner of the Annual BCI Research Award also receives $3,000 (1st), $2,000 (2nd), $1,000 (3rd) and a statue at a gala awards ceremony attached to a major conference. g.tec medical engineering GmbH and Guger Technologies OG, companies headquartered in Austria that manufactures BCI products,^[1] organize the Award together with international institutions.

Selection Criteria and Procedure

The jury is instructed to score all projects based on the following criteria:

• Does the project include a novel application of the BCI?
• Is there any new methodological approach used compared to earlier projects?
• Is there any new benefit for potential users of a BCI?
• Is there any improvement in terms of speed of the system (e.g. bit/min)?
• Is there any improvement in terms of accuracy of the system?
• Does the project include any results obtained from real patients or other potential users?
• Does the approach work online/in real-time?
• Is there any improvement in terms of usability?
• Does the project include any novel hardware or software developments?

Each year, the Annual BCI Research Award follows a rigorous, structured schedule to encourage the best submissions, ensure the most effective decisionmaking processes, and maximize the impact. This section describes the general timeline for each annual. Since the Award is presented at a major conference, the exact dates change each year, but the general procedure will not change.

• Preceding year (after last year’s award): g.tec selects the date and location of the award ceremony, identifies the institute that will host the award, and chooses the Chairman of the Jury.
• The awarding institute selects the jury, submission deadline, and other details. The award is announced through various means, such as email, website postings, and word of mouth.
• About two months before the award ceremony: all submissions must be emailed to the jury. The jury chooses ten nominees.
• About one month before the award ceremony: the nominees are publicly announced.
• Award Ceremony: The winner is announced at the award ceremony. The ceremony is always scheduled with a major conference, so the exact date and venue changes each year.

2017 Award

Submissions for the 2017 BCI Award were due May 15, 2017. The jury was:

• Natalie Mrachacz-Kersting (chair),
• Gaurav Sharma (winner 2016)
• Reinhold Scherer
• Jose Pons
• Femke Nijboer
• Kenji Kansaku
• Aaron Batista
• Jing Jin

As with previous years, the jury managed the selection of nominees and winners, and any jury members who also contributed a submission did not vote on that submission. The selection of nominees and winners was based on the same award criteria as previous years, described above. The Award Ceremony took place on September 20, 2017 as part of the 7th International BCI Conference 2017, which occurred from September 18 to 22, 2017. Prof. Gernot Muller-Putz introduced Dr. Guger, who briefly introduced the award to the attendees. The jury chair, Natalie Mrachacz-Kersting, announced the nominees, and Brendan Allison announced the winners.

The twelve nominated projects in 2017 were:

The three winners in 2017 were:

First place:

"Online adaptive brain-computer interface with attention variations"

S. Aliakbaryhosseinabadi et al.

Second place:

"Individual word classification during imagined speech"

Martin et al.

Third place:

"BCI prosthetic hand to control phantom limb pain"

Yanagisawa et al.

2018 Award

One of the announcements during the 2017 Awards Ceremony stated that the next BCI Research Award ceremony would occur at the Seventh International BCI Meeting, which is scheduled for May 2018 in Pacific Grove, CA. The jury will again select twelve nominees from the submissions and then choose the three winners.

2016 Award

Submissions for the 2016 BCI Award were due Mar 1, 2016. The jury was:

• Mikhail A. Lebedev (chair of the jury 2016),
• Alexander Kaplan,
• Klaus-Robert Müller,
• Ayse Gündüz,
• Kyousuke Kamada,
• Guy Hotson (winner 2015).

As with previous Awards, the jury was responsible for reviewing submissions that presented new BCI research, nominating the best projects, and choosing the winners. For the first time in the history of the Award, the jury selected twelve nominees instead of ten. The twelve nominated projects were:

Carlos Amaral1, João Andrade1, Marco Simões1, Susana Mouga1,2, Bruno Direito1, Miguel Castelo-Branco1,3

1 IBILI - Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences, Faculty of Medicine – University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

2 Unidade de Neurodesenvolvimento e Autismo do Serviço do Centro de Desenvolvimento da Criança, Pediatric Hospital, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

3 ICNAS – Brain Imaging Network of Portugal.)

A P300-based brain-computer interface for social attention rehabilitation in autism

Daiki Aminaka, Tomasz M. Rutkowski

University of Tsukuba, Japan.

Sixteen Commands and 40 Hz Carrier Frequency Code-modulated Visual Evoked Potential BCI

Luke Bashford1,2, JingWu3, Devapratim Sarma3, Kelly Collins4, Jeff Ojemann4, Carsten Mehring2

1 Imperial College London, Bioengineering, UK

2 Bernstein Centre, Faculty of Biology, BrainLinks-BrainTools, Univ. of Freiburg, Germany

3 Bioengineering, Ctr. For Sensorimotor Neural Eng.

4 Dept. of Neurolog. Surgery, Ctr. For Sensorimotor Neural Eng., Univ. of Washington, USA.

Natural movement with concurrent brain-computer interface control induces persistent dissociation of neural activity

Sharlene Flesher2,3, John Downey2,3, Jennifer Collinger1,2,3,4, Stephen Foldes1,3,4, Jeffrey Weiss1,2, Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara1,2,5, Sliman Bensmaia6, Andrew Schwartz2,3,8, Michael Boninger1,2,4, Robert Gaunt1,2,3

1,2,5,8Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bioengineering, Neurological Surgery, Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

3 Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

4 Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

6 Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Intracortical Microstimulation as a Feedback Source for Brain-Computer Interface Users

Thomas J. Oxley, Nicholas L. Opie, Sam E. John, Gil S. Rind, Stephen M. Ronayne, Clive N. May, Terence J. O’Brien

Vascular Bionics Laboratory, Melbourne Brain Centre, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.

Minimally invasive endovascular stent-electrode array for high-fidelity, chronic recordings of cortical neural activity

Jaime A. Pereira1,2, Ranganatha Sitaram1,3, Pradyumna Sepulveda2,4,5, Mohit Rana2, Cristián Montalba5, Cristián Tejos3,4,5, Sergio Ruiz1,2,3

1 Department of Psychiatry and Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

2 Laboratory of Brain-Machine Interfaces and Neuromodulation, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

3 Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Schools of Engineering, Medicine and Biology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

4 Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

5 Biomedical Imaging Center, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Brain-Computer Interfaces based on fMRI for Volitional Control of Amygdala and Fusiform Face Area: Applications in Autism

Matthias Schultze-Kraft, Daniel Birman, Marco Rusconi, Carsten Allefeld, Kai Görgen, Sven Dähne, Benjamin Blankertz, John-Dylan Haynes

Neurotechnology Group, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Reclaiming the Free Will: A Real-Time Duel between a Human and a Brain-Computer Interface

Gaurav Sharma1, Nick Annetta1, Dave Friedenberg1, Marcie Bockbrader2, Ammar Shaikhouni2, W. Mysiw2, Chad Bouton1, Ali Rezai2

1 Battelle Memorial Institute, 505 King Ave, Columbus, OH 43201

2 The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 43210.

An Implanted BCI for Real-Time Cortical Control of Functional Wrist and Finger Movements in a Human with Quadriplegia

Jordy Thielen, Pieter Marsman, Colleen Monaghan, Jason Farquhar and Peter Desain

Donders Center for Cognition, Radboud University Nijmegen

Broad-band BCI: finding structure in noisy data

Yueming Wang1, Minlong Lu2, Zhaohui Wu2, Liwen Tian2, Kedi Xu1, Xiaoxiang Zheng1, Gang Pan2

1 Qiushi Academy for Advanced Studies, Zhejiang University, China.

2 College of Computer Science, Zhejiang University, China

Vision-Augmented Rat Cyborg

Seung Woo Lee and Shelley I. Fried

Boston VA Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Precise and reliable activation of cortex with micro-coils

L. Yao1, T. Xie2, Z. Wu3, X. Sheng2, D. Zhang2, C. Lin1, F. Negro1, L. Chen3, N. Mrachacz-Kersting4, X. Zhu2, D. Farina1

1 Institute of Neurorehabilitation Systems, University Medical Center Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

2 State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Institute of Robotics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

3 Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, China.44 Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Towards Online Functional Brain Mapping and Monitoring during Awake Craniotomy Surgery using ECoG-based Brain-Surgeon Interface (BSI)

The Gala Awards Ceremony occurred on June 2, 2016 in Merrill Hall at the Asilomar Conference Center as part of the Sixth International BCI Meeting, which was from May 30 - June 3, 2016 in Pacific Grove, CA. Dr. Kyosuke Kamada represented the jury, while Dr. Christoph Guger presented the awards and Dr. Brendan Allison emceed the ceremony. Most of the conference attendees were present to see the twelve nominees receive a certificate and stand onstage while the first, second, and third place winners were announced. The winners were:

The BCI Award 2016 winner was:

Gaurav Sharma1, Nick Annetta1, Dave Friedenberg1, Marcie Bockbrader2, Ammar Shaikhouni2, W. Mysiw2, Chad Bouton1, Ali Rezai2

1 Battelle Memorial Institute, 505 King Ave, Columbus, OH 43201

2 The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 43210.

An Implanted BCI for Real-Time Cortical Control of Functional Wrist and Finger Movements in a Human with Quadriplegia

The following image shows one person representing most of the twelve nomimated projects on stage during the Award Ceremony. (The picture shows ten nominees, not twelve, because two were not available at the Ceremony.) On the far right of the image is Dr. Christoph Guger, and to his right is Dr. Kyosuke Kamada.

This image shows nominees receiving their awards onstage during the Awards Ceremony in 2016.

The BCI Award 2016 2nd and 3rd place winners were:

Sharlene Flesher2,3, John Downey2,3, Jennifer Collinger1,2,3,4, Stephen Foldes1,3,4, Jeffrey Weiss1,2, Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara1,2,5, Sliman Bensmaia6, Andrew Schwartz2,3,8, Michael Boninger1,2,4, Robert Gaunt1,2,3

1,2,5,8Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bioengineering, Neurological Surgery, Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

3Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

4Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

6Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Intracortical Microstimulation as a Feedback Source for Brain-Computer Interface Users

Thomas J. Oxley, Nicholas L. Opie, Sam E. John, Gil S. Rind, Stephen M. Ronayne, Clive N. May, Terence J. O’Brien

Vascular Bionics Laboratory, Melbourne Brain Centre, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.

Minimally invasive endovascular stent-electrode array for high-fidelity, chronic recordings of cortical neural activity

The first, second, and third place winners received cash awards of $3000, $2000, and $1000, respectively. These three winners also received a special bread knife, and all nominees won other prizes. The 2017 BCI Research Award will accept submissions later, and this information will be posted on the BCI Research Award website.^[2] The 2017 BCI Research Award Ceremony will be part of the Seventh International BCI conference.^[3]

2015 Award

The deadline for the 2015 Award is 1 July 2015. The Annual BCI Research Award 2015 will be awarded by the Department of Biosciences and Informatics - Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Japan at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, NEUROSCIENCE 2015, Oct 17-21, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

In 2015 60 top-level research projects were submitted from all over the world! The jury, chaired by Junichi Ushiba, carefully scores 10 nominated projects, and then selects the winner for the Annual BCI Research Award 2014. The ten nominees,^[4] presented alphabetically by first author, were:

• Peter Brunner, Karen Dijkstra, Will Coon, Jürgen Mellinger, Anthony L. Ritaccio, Gerwin Schalk (Albany Medical College and the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Wadsworth Center, Albany, US)

An ECoG-Based BCI on Auditory Attention to Natural Speech

• R. Chavarriaga¹, L.A. Gheorghe^1,2, H. Zhang¹, Z. Khaliliardali¹, J. d. R. Millán¹ (¹Defitech Chair in Brain-Machine Interface, Center for Neuroprosthetics, EPFL, Lausanne, CH,²Mobility Services Laboratory, Nissan Research Center, Nissan Motor Co., JP)

Easy riders: Brain-Computer interfaces for enhancing driving experience

• Damien Coyle (School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, Ulster University, UK)

Sensorimotor Modulation Assessment and Brain-Computer Interface Training with Auditory feedback in Disorders of Consciousness

• Christian Herff¹, Dominic Heger², Adriana de Pesters³, Dominic Telaar², Peter Brunner^3,4, Gerwin Schalk^3,4, Tanja Schultz¹ (¹Cognitive Systems Lab, Universität Bremen, Bremen, DE, ²Cognitive Systems Lab, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, DE, ³National Resource Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Wadsworth Center, Albany, US, ⁴Department of Neurology, Albany Medical College, Albany, US)

Brain-to-Text: Towards continuous speech as a paradigm for BCI

• Roni Hogri^1,3, Simeon A. Bamford^2,4, Aryeh H. Taub^1,5 (¹Psychobiology Research Unit, Tel Aviv University, IL,²Complex Systems Modeling Group, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, IT, ³Department of Neurophysiology, Medical University of Vienna, AT,⁴Inilabs Gmbh, CH,⁵Department of Neurobiology, Wiezmann Institute of Science, IL)

De-novo experience-based learning in rats interfaced with a "cerebellar chip"

• Guy Hotson¹, David P McMullen², Matthew S. Fifer³, Matthew S. Johannes⁴, Kapil D. Katyal⁴, Matthew P. Para⁴, Robert Armiger⁴, William S. Anderson², Nitish V. Thakor³, Brock A. Wester⁴, Nathan E. Crone⁵ (¹Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, US,²Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University, US, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, US, ⁴Applied Neuroscience, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, US, ⁵Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, US)

Individual Finger Control of the Modular Prosthetic Limb using High-Density Electrocorticography in a Human Subject

• Kenji Kato, Masahiro Sawada, Tadashi Isa, Yukio Nishimura (National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Aichi, JP)

Restoration for the volitional motor function via an artificial neural connection

• Guangye Li, Dingguo Zhang (Robotics Institute, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, CN)

Brain-Computer Interface Controlling Cyborg: A Functional Brain-to-Brain Interface between Human and Cockroach

• N Mrachacz-Kersting¹, L Yao², S Gervasio¹, N Jiang³, BD Ebbesen¹, TS Palsson¹, TG Nielsen¹, R. Xu², D. Falla², K Dremstrup¹, D Farina² (¹Sensory-Motor Interaction, Aalborg University, DK,² University Medical Center, Göttigen, DE, ³University of Waterloo, CA)

A Brain-Computer-Interface to combat musculoskeletal pain

• Sergey D. Stavisky, Jonathan C. Kao, Paul Nuyujukian, Stephen I. Ryu, Krishna V. Shenoy (Stanford University, US)

Increasing the useful lifespan of intracortical BCIs by decoding local field potentials as an alternative or compliment to spikes

Christoph Guger (left), Guy Hotson (Winner of 2015), Kenji Kato (3rd place), Ron Hogri (2nd place), Brendan Allison (right)

The 2015 BCI Award winner was:

Guy Hotson¹, David P McMullen², Matthew S. Fifer³, Matthew S. Johannes⁴, Kapil D. Katyal⁴, Matthew P. Para⁴, Robert Armiger⁴, William S. Anderson², Nitish V. Thakor³, Brock A. Wester⁴, Nathan E. Crone⁵ (¹Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, US,²Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University, US, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, US, ⁴Applied Neuroscience, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, US, ⁵Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, US)

Individual Finger Control of the Modular Prosthetic Limb using High-Density Electrocorticography in a Human Subject

The BCI Award 2015 2nd and 3rd place are:

Roni Hogri^1,3, Simeon A. Bamford^2,4, Aryeh H. Taub^1,5 (¹Psychobiology Research Unit, Tel Aviv University, IL,²Complex Systems Modeling Group, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, IT, ³Department of Neurophysiology, Medical University of Vienna, AT,⁴Inilabs Gmbh, CH,⁵Department of Neurobiology, Wiezmann Institute of Science, IL)

De-novo experience-based learning in rats interfaced with a "cerebellar chip"

Kenji Kato, Masahiro Sawada, Tadashi Isa, Yukio Nishimura (National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Aichi, JP)

Restoration for the volitional motor function via an artificial neural connection

The 2015 jury consists of:

Junichi Ushiba (chair of the jury 2015)

Masayuki Hirata

Nuri Firat Ince

Zachary Freudenburg

José del R. Millán

Sydney Cash

Tomasz M. Rutkowski

2014 Award

The deadline for the 2014 Award was 1 July 2014, but was extended to 10 July 2014. The Annual BCI Research Award 2014 will be awarded by the Institute of Knowledge Discovery, Graz University of Technology, Austria at the 6th International Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2014,^[5] September 16–19, 2014 in Graz, Austria.

In 2014 68 top-level research projects were submitted from all over the world! The jury, chaired by Gernot R. Müller-Putz, carefully scores 10 nominated projects, and then selects the winner for the Annual BCI Research Award 2014. The ten nominees,^[4] presented alphabetically by first author, were:

• P. Brunner^a, K. Dijkstra^a, W. Coon^a, J. Mellinger^a, A. L. Ritaccio^a, G. Schalk^a (^aWadsworth Center and Albany Medical College, US)

Towards an Auditory Attention BCI

• J. Gomez-Pilar^a, R. Corralejo^a, D. Álvarez^a, R. Hornero^a (^aBiomedical Engineering Group, E. T. S. I. Telecomunicación, University of Valladolid, ES)

Neurofeedback training by motor imagery based-BCI improves neurocognitive areas in elderly people

• K. Hamada^a, H. Mori^b, H. Shinoda^a, T.M. Rutkowski^{b, c} (^bThe University of Tokyo, JP, ^bLife Science Center of TARA, University of Tsukuba, JP, ^cRIKEN Brain Science Institute, JP)

Airborne Ultrasonic Tactile Display BCI

• J. Ibáñez^a, J. I. Serrano^a, M. D. del Castillo^a, E. Monge^b, F. Molina^b, F.M. Rivas^b, J.L. Pons^a (^aBioengineering Group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), ^bLAMBECOM group, Health Sciences Faculty, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Alcorcón, ES)

Heterogeneous BCI-triggered functional electrical stimulation intervention for the upper-limb rehabilitation of stroke patients

• D. McMullen^a, G. Hotson^b, M. Fifer^c, K. Kaytal^d, B. Wester^d, M. Johannes^d, T. McGee^d, A. Harris^d, A. Ravitz^d, W. S. Anderson^a, N. Thakor^x, N. Crone^a (^aJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, ^bJohns Hopkins University, Department of Electrical Engineering, ^cJohns Hopkins University, Department of Biomedical Engineering,^dJohns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, US)

Demonstration of a Semi-Autonomous Hybrid Brain-Machine Interface using Human Intracranial EEG, Eye Tracking, and Computer Vision to Control a Robotic Upper Limb Prosthetic

• K. J. Miller^a, G. Schalk^b, D. Hermes^c, J. G. Ojemann^d, R. P.N. Rao^e (^aDepartment of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, ^bWadsworth Center and Albany Medical College, ^cDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, ^dDepartment of Neurological Surgery, University of Washington, ^eDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, US)

Unsupervised decoding the onset and type of visual stimuli using electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals in humans

• N. Mrachacz-Kersting^a, N. Jiang^b, S. Aliakbaryhosseinabadi^a, R. Xu^b, L. Petrini^a, R. Lontis^a, M. Jochumsen^a, K. Dremstrup^a, D. Farina^b (^aSensory-Motor Interaction, Department of Health Science and Technology, DK, ^bDept. Neurorehabilitation Engineering Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience University Medical Center, DE)

The changing Brain: Bidirectional learning between algorithm and user

• M. M. Shanechi^{a, b}, A. L. Orsborn^c, H. G. Moorman^c, S. Gowda^b, S. Dangi^b, J. M. Carmena^{b, c} (^aSchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, ^bDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, ^cUC Berkeley UCSF Joint Graduate Program in Bioengineering, US)

Rapid control and feedback rates in the sensorimotor pathway enhance neuroprosthetic control

• F. R. Willett^{a, b, c}, H. A. Kalodimos^{a, b, c}, D. M. Taylor^{a, b, c} (^aCleveland Clinic, Neurosciences, ^bCleveland VA Medical Center, ^cCase Western Reserve University, Biomedical Engineering, US)

Retraining the Brain to Directly Control Muscle Stimulators in an Upper-Limb Neuroprosthesis

• A. Wilson^a, R. Arya^a (^aCincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, US)

Real-Time Bedside Cortical Language Mapping during Spontaneous Conversation with Children

The jury, organizers, and winner of the 2014 BCI Award.

The 2014 BCI Award winner was:

K. Hamada^a, H. Mori^b, H. Shinoda^a, T.M. Rutkowski^{b, c} (^bThe University of Tokyo, JP, ^bLife Science Center of TARA, University of Tsukuba, JP, ^cRIKEN Brain Science Institute, JP)

Airborne Ultrasonic Tactile Display BCI

The BCI Award 2014 2nd and 3rd place are:

J. Ibáñez^a, J. I. Serrano^a, M. D. del Castillo^a, E. Monge^b, F. Molina^b, F.M. Rivas^b, J.L. Pons^a (^aBioengineering Group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), ^bLAMBECOM group, Health Sciences Faculty, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Alcorcón, ES)

Heterogeneous BCI-triggered functional electrical stimulation intervention for the upper-limb rehabilitation of stroke patients

N. Mrachacz-Kersting^a, N. Jiang^b, S. Aliakbaryhosseinabadi^a, R. Xu^b, L. Petrini^a, R. Lontis^a, M. Jochumsen^a, K. Dremstrup^a, D. Farina^b (^aSensory-Motor Interaction, Department of Health Science and Technology, DK, ^bDept. Neurorehabilitation Engineering Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience University Medical Center, DE)

The changing Brain: Bidirectional learning between algorithm and user

The 2014 jury consists of:

Gernot R. Müller-Putz,

Deniz Erdogmus,

Peter Brunner,

Tomasz M. Rutkowski,

Mikhail A. Lebedev,

2013 Award

The original deadline for the 2013 Award was 30 March 2013, but was extended to 14 April 2013. The Annual BCI Research Award 2013 will be awarded by the Wadsworth Center, Albany, United States at the BCI Meeting 2013^[6] in June 3–7, 2013 in Asilomar, California, USA.

169 projects were submitted for the 2013 Award. Like the preceding years, the submissions came from groups all over the world, and reflected a wide range of different types of BCIs. The jury, chaired by Theresa Vaughan, carefully scores 10 nominated projects, and then selects the winner for the Annual BCI Research Award 2013. The ten nominees,^[4] presented alphabetically by first author, were:

• M.G. Bleichner^a, J.M. Jansma^a, Z.V. Freudenburg^a, E.J. Aarnoutse^a, M.J. Vansteensel^a, N.F. Ramsey^a (^aRudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Dept. of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, NL)

Give me a sign: The possibilities of using hand gestures as control signal for implanted brain computer interfaces.

• D. T. Bundy^a, E. C. Leuthardt^a (^aWashington University, St. Louis, Mo, USA)

An Ipsilateral, Contralesional BCI in Chronic Stroke Patients.

• M. C. Dadarlat^a,b, J. E. O’Doherty^a, P. N. Sabes^a,b (^aDepartment of Physiology, Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, CA, US, ^bUC Berkeley-UCSF Bioengineering Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, US)

A learning-based approach to artificial sensory feedback: intracortical microstimulation replaces and augments vision.

• Y. Hashimoto^a, T. Ota^b, M. Mukaino^b, J.Ushiba^c (^aDepartment of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Kitami Institute of Technology, Kitami, Hokkaido, JP, ^bDepartment of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, JP, ^cDepartment of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, JP)

Motor recovery of chronic writer’s cramp by brain-computer interface rehabilitation: A pilot study.

• I. Iturrate^a, R. Chavarriaga^b, L. Montesano^a, J. Minguez^a, J. del R. Millán^b (^aInstituto de Investigación en Ingeniería de Aragón and Dpto. de Informatica e Ingeniería de Sistemas, University of Zaragoza, ES, ^bDefitech Foundation Chair in Non-Invasive Brain-Machine Interface, EPFL, Lausanne, CH)

Cognitive signals for brain-machine interfaces: an alternative paradigm to neuroprosthetics control.

• N. Jiang^a, N. Mrachacz-Kersting^b, R. Xu^a, K. Dremstrup^b and D. Farina^a (^aDepartment of Neurorehabilitation Engineering, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center, Göttingen, DE, ^bCenter for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, DK)

An Accurate, Versatile, and Robust Brain Switch for Neurorehabilitation.

• D. Looney^a, P. Kidmose^b, M. J. Morrell^a,c, D. P. Mandic^a (^aImperial College London, UK, ^bAarhus University, Denmark, ^cSleep Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK)

Ear-EEG: Continuous Brain Monitoring.

• D. Novak^a, B. Beyeler^a, X. Omlin^a, R. Riener^a,b (^aSensory-Motor Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, CH, ^bSpinal Cord Injury Center of Balgrist University Hospital, CH)

A hybrid brain computer interface for adaptive workload estimation in rehabilitation robotics.

• M. Shanechi^a,b, R. Hu^d,e, M. Powers^d, G. Wornell^c, E. Brown^d,e,f, Z. Williams^d,e (^aDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA ^bDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA ^cDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA ^dMassachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA ^eHarvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ^fDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA)

A concurrent brain-machine interface for sequential motor function.

• D. Zhang^a, H. Song^a, R. Xu^a, B. Hong^a (^aDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, CN)

Exploring an fMRI-guided minimally invasive subdural N200 speller.

The jury, organizers, nominees and winner of the 2013 BCI Award.

The 2013 BCI Award winner was:

M. C. Dadarlat^a,b, J. E. O’Doherty^a, P. N. Sabes^a,b (^aDepartment of Physiology, Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, CA, US, ^bUC Berkeley-UCSF Bioengineering Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, US)

A learning-based approach to artificial sensory feedback: intracortical microstimulation replaces and augments vision.

The 2013 jury consists of:

Theresa Vaughan, Dr.,

Douglas Weber, Dr.,

Adam Hebb, Dr.,

Donatella Mattia, Dr.,

Andrzej Cichocki, Dr.,

Adam Wilson, Dr.,

Surjo Soekadar, Dr.

2012 Award

The original deadline for the 2012 Award was 15 July 2012, but was extended to 30 July 2012. The 2012 award was presented at a dinner ceremony at the 2012 conference^[7] of the Society for Neuroscience, which was 13-17 Oct in New Orleans, Louisiana. The annual SfN conference is a well-established venue for presenting BCI research.

68 projects were submitted for the 2012 Award. Like the two preceding years, the submissions came from groups all over the world, and reflected a wide range of different types of BCIs. Relative to previous years, there was a stronger emphasis on BCIs with direct medical applications (as opposed to pure research, healthy user applications, etc.) Most of the nominated projects were aimed at helping groups with specific medical needs, such as persons with stroke, tetraplegia, epilepsy, paralysis or visual deficits. The ten nominees,^[4] presented alphabetically by first author, were:

A.B. Ajiboye, D. Bacher, L. Barefoot, E. Berhanu, M.J. Black, D. Blana, S.S. Cash, K. Centrella, E.K. Chadwick, A. Cornwell, J. P. Donoghue, E. Eskandar, J. M. Feldman, G. M. Friehs, E. Gallivan, B. Jarosiewicz, L. R. Hochberg, M. Homer, P.-S. Kim, B. King, R. F. Kirsch, J. Liu, W. Q. Malik, N. Y. Masse, J. A. Perge, D. M. Rosler, A. Sarma, N. Schmansky, J. D. Simeral, S. Stavisky, B. Travers, K. Tringale, W. Truccolo (School of Engineering, Brown University) and S. Haddadin, J. Vogel (Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center / DLR) and P. van der Smagt (Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center / DLR, and Institute of Informatics, Technische Universität München)

Intracortical control of assistive devices by individuals with tetraplegia.

• C.A. Domingues Teixeira, B. Direito, M. Bandarabadi, H. Feldwisch-Drentrup, A. Witton, C. Alvarado, M. Le Van Quyen, B. Schelter, G. Favaro A. Dourado (Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal)

Brainatic: A system for real-time epileptic seizure prediction.

• L. George, M. Marchal, L. Glondu, A. Lécuyer (INRIA, Rennes, France)

Combining Brain-Computer Interfaces and Haptics: Detecting Mental Workload to Adapt Haptic Assistance.

• T. Z. Lauritzen, J. Harris, J. A. Sahel, J. D. Dorn, K. McClure, R. J. Greenberg (Second Sight Medical Products, Sylmar, CA, USA)

Reading visual Braille with a retinal prosthesis.

• D. Looney, P. Kidmose, D.P. Mandic (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)

Ear-EEG: User-Centered, Wearable & 24/7 BCI.

• N. Mrachacz-Kersting, N. Jiang, K. Dremstrup, D. Farina (Aalborg University, Denmark)

A novel brain-computer interface for chronic stroke patients.

• S. Ruiz, M. Rana, K. Sass, T. Kircher, N. Birbaumer, R. Sitaram (Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany)

Brain connectivity and semantic priming enhancement using Brain Computer Interfaces based on real-time fMRI Neurofeedback.

• S. R. Soekadar, N. Birbaumer (Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany)

Improving Efficacy of Ipsilesional Brain-Computer Interface Training in Neurorehabilitation of Chronic Stroke.

• M. Takemi, Y. Masakado, M. Liu, J. Ushiba (Keio University, Japan)

Online estimate of event-related desynchronization by hand motor imagery is associated with corticospinal excitability-physiological evidence for brain-computer interface based neurorehabilitation.

• T. Yanagisawa, M. Hirata, Y. Saitoh, H. Kishima, K. Matsushita, T. Goto, R. Fukuma, H. Yokoi, Y. Kamitani, T. Yoshimine (Osaka University Medical School, Japan)

Electrocorticographic control of prosthetic hands in paralyzed patients.

The jury, organizers, and winner of the 2012 BCI Award. From left to right: Surjo R. Soekadar (holding the Award), Leigh Hochberg, Gerwin Schalk, Junichi Ushiba, Christoph Guger.

The 2012 BCI Award winner was:

Surjo R. Soekadar, Niels Birbaumer (Applied Neurotechnology Lab, University Hospital Tübingen and Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany)

Improving Efficacy of Ipsilesional Brain-Computer Inteface Training in Neurorehabilitation of Chronic Stroke

Dr. Eric Leuthardt said that "It is a great pleasure to congratulate the Soekadar and Birbaumer team on their project entitled "Improving Efficacy of Ipsilesional Brain-Computer Interface Training in Neurorehabilitation of Chronic Stroke." Their work is highlighting the important movement of neuroprosthetics towards stroke. There is a fundamental need to use BCI approaches to address this clinical area of motor disability that numbers in the hundreds of thousands per year and stands to increase substantially as the world population ages. BCI for stroke will likely be the next chapter for engineered restorative strategies that could be paradigm shifting in this widespread form of motor impairment."

The 2012 jury again included some of the top figures in BCI research, with a stronger emphasis on medical doctors than previous years. The 2012 jury also included the winner of the 2011 BCI Award, just as the 2012 jury included the winnerof the 2010 BCI Award. For the first time, the jury also included scientists who had been jurors in previous years. Specifically, the jury included Profs. Gerwin Schalk and Gert Pfurtscheller, who were the chairmen of the jury in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The 2012 was chaired by Eric Leuthardt, M.D., and also consisted of:

Gert Pfurtscheller, Ph.D.,

Leigh Hochberg, M.D, Ph.D.,

Gerwin Schalk, Ph.D.,

Moritz Grosse-Wentrup, Ph.D.,

Junichi Ushiba, Ph.D.

Springer Publishing will publish a book about the 2012 BCI Award. Like the prior books about awards in earlier years, the book will include an introduction, discussion, and ten chapters from the ten nominees. These ten chapters will each describe the work submitted and updated information about more recent progress. The book will be edited by Drs. Guger, Allison, and Edlinger.

2011 Award

The 2011 award was presented at a dinner ceremony at the Hotel Weitzer in Graz, Austria. The ceremony was scheduled around 5th International Brain-Computer Interface Conference, which was held in Graz from 22-24 Sept. 2011. The awarding institute was the Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interfaces, Institute for Knowledge Discovery, Graz University of Technology, which also hosted the conference. Prof. Gert Pfurtscheller, the Chairman of the Jury, presented the award, and the ceremony was emceed by Dr. Brendan Allison. In addition to Prof. Pfurtscheller, the 2011 jury consisted of:

Robert Leeb, Ph.D.,

Cuntai Guan, Ph.D.,

Theresa Vaughan,

Michael Tangermann, Ph.D.,

Jane Huggins, Ph.D.

The ceremony featured over 100 attendees from the BCI community, and featured a Distinguished Special Guest, Prof. Jacques Vidal. Prof. Vidal is the inventor of BCIs (Vidal, 1973, 1977),^[8][9] as widely noted in review articles and book chapters (Wolpaw et al., 2002;^[10] Allison et al., 2007,^[11] 2012;^[12] Wolpaw and Wolpaw, 2012^[13]). 64 projects were submitted for the 2011 award. The ten projects that were nominated showed the breadth of BCI research. The projects reflected a range of different sensor types, including BCIs based on single cell recordings, invasive recordings with implanted electrodes on the cortex, and non-invasive scalp recordings. A range of BCI applications were also nominated, including BCIs for speech recognition, stroke rehabilitation, and robotic device control.

The ten nominees, presented in alphabetical order by first author, were:

• Tim Blakely, Kai Miller, Jeffrey Ojemann, Rajesh Rao (University of Washington, USA)

Exploring the cortical dynamics of learning by leveraging BCI paradigms.

• Jonathan S. Brumberg, Philip R. Kennedy, Frank H. Guenther (Boston University, USA)

An auditory output brain-computer interface for speech communication.

• Samuel Clanton, Robert Rasmussen, Zohny Zohny, Meel Velliste, S. Morgan Jeffries, Angus McMorland, Andrew Schwartz (Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, USA)

Seven degree of freedom cortical control of a robotic arm.

• Felix Darvas (University of Washington, USA)

Utilizing high gamma (HG) band power changes as control signal for non-invasive BCI.

• Elisabeth V. C. Friedrich, Reinhold Scherer, Christa Neuper (University of Graz, Austria)

User-appropriate and robust control strategies to enhance brain computer interface performance and usability.

• Moritz Grosse-Wentrup, Bernhard Schölkopf (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany)

What are the neuro-physiological causes of performance variations in brain-computer interfacing?

• Eric C. Leuthardt, Charles Gaona, Mohit Sharma, Nicholas Szrama, Jarod Roland, Zac Freudenberg, Jamie Solis, Jonathan Breshears, Gerwin Schalk (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)

Using the electrocorticographic speech network to control a brain-computer interface in humans

• Daniele De Massari, Carolin Ruf, Adrian Furdea, Sebastian Halder, Tamara Matuz, Niels Birbaumer (University of Tübingen, IRCCS, International Max Planck Research School, Germany)

The jury, organizers, and winner of the 2011 BCI Award. From left to right: Michael Tangermann, Gernot Müller-Putz, Gert Pfurtscheller, Theresa Vaughan, Moritz Grosse-Wentrup (fifth from left, holding the Award), Christoph Guger, Brendan Allison, Jane Huggins, Cuntai Guan, Robert Leeb.

Towards communication in the completely locked-in state: neuroelectric semantic conditioning BCI.

• Qibin Zhao, Akinari Onishi, Yu Zhang, Andrzej Cichocki (RIKEN, Japan)

An affective BCI using multiple ERP components associated to facial emotion processing.

• Raphael Zimmermann, Laura Marchal-Crespo, Olivier Lambercy, Marie-Christine Fluet, Jean-Claude Metzger, Johannes Brand, Janis Edelmann, Kynan Eng, Robert Riener, Martin Wolf, Roger Gassert (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)

What's your next move? Detecting movement intention for stroke rehabilitation.

The winning submission 2011 was:

Moritz Grosse-Wentrup, Bernhard Schölkopf (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany)

What are the Neuro-Physiological Causes of Performance Variations in Brain-Computer Interfacing?

g.tec has announced that it is developing a book through Springer Publishing based on the 2011 BCI Research Award competition. This book will be similar to the book based on the 2010 Award, which is described below. All ten of the nominees have written chapters that summarize the work they submitted for the 2011 Award and their follow-up efforts. Two other chapters, an introduction and conclusion, include analyses and summaries of the ten projects that were nominated as well as all submitted projects. The chapters have been peer-reviewed, then revised by the authors, and are soon going to press. The book's editors are Drs. Christoph Guger, Brendan Allison, and Günter Edlinger.

2010 Award

The 2010 award was presented at a dinner ceremony with over 100 attendees from the BCI community on the Asilomar Conference grounds near Monterey, California. The ceremony was scheduled around the BCI Meeting 2010, which was held on the same grounds from 31 May until 4 June 2010. The awarding institute was the Wadsworth Center, represented by Prof. Gerwin Schalk. The 2010 jury also consisted of:

Eric Sellers, Ph.D.,

Dean Krusienski, Ph.D.,

Klaus-Robert Müller, Ph.D.,

Bo Hong, Ph.D.,

Benjamin Blankertz, Ph.D.

60 projects were submitted for the 2010 Award. The ten nominees, presented in alphabetical order by first author, were:

• Guangyu Bin, Xiaorong Gao, Shangkai Gao (Tsinghua University, China)

A high speed word spelling BCI system based on code modulated visual evoked potentials

• Steven M. Chase, Andrew S. Whitford, and Andrew B. Schwartz (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)

Operant conditioning to identify independent, volitionally-controllable patterns of neural activity

• Cuntai Guan, Kai Keng Ang, Karen Sui Geok Chua, Beng Ti Ang (A*STAR, Singapore)

Motor imagery-based Brain-Computer Interface robotic rehabilitation for stroke

• Jing Guo, Shangkai Gao, Bo Hong (Tsinghua University, China)

An active auditory BCI for intention expression in locked-in

• Kimiko Kawashima, Keiichiro Shindo, Junichi Ushiba, Meigen Liu (Keio University, Japan)

Neurorehabilitation for Chronic-Phase Stroke using a Brain-Machine Interface

• Tao Liu, Shangkai Gao, Bo Hong (Tsinghua University, China)

Brain-actuated Google search by using motion onset VEP

• Jana Muenssinger, Harry George, Sebastian Halder, Adi Hoesle, Andrea Kübler (Universität Tübingen, Germany)

Brain Painting - "Paint your way out"

The winner of the 2010 prize (middle), along with Drs. Günter Edlinger (left) and Christoph Guger (right).

• Mark Palatucci, Dean Pomerleau, Geoff Hinton, Tom Mitchell (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)

Thought Recognition with Semantic Output Codes

• David B. Ryan and Eric W. Sellers (East Tennessee State University, USA)

Predictive Spelling with a P300-based BCI: Increasing Communication Rate

• George Townsend (Algoma University BCI Lab, Canada)

Innovations in P300-based BCI Stimulus Presentation Methods

The ten nominated projects have been published in a 2011 book,^[14] edited by Reza Fazel.

The winning submission 2010 was:

Cuntai Guan, Kai Keng Ang, Karen Sui Geok Chua, Beng Ti Ang (A*STAR, Singapore)

Motor imagery-based Brain-Computer Interface robotic rehabilitation for stroke

In addition to the usual awards, the winner also received an autographed copy of the book “A Practical guide to Brain-Computer Interfacing with BCI2000”.^[15]

Associated Events

There are a few other awards for BCI research. For example, the Berlin BCI group has hosted several Data Analysis Competitions. These competitions provide data from different types of BCIs (such as P300, ERD, or SSVEP), and competitors attempt to develop data analysis algorithms that can most accurately classify new data. The recently announced HCI Challenge instead focuses on improving the human-computer interaction within BCIs, such as through more natural and friendly interfaces. The X-Prize Foundation lists X-Prizes for BCI and Enduring Brain Computer Communication^[16] as “Concepts Under Consideration". The Gao group at Tsinghua University in Beijing coordinated an online BCI competition at a conference that they hosted in 2010, and hosted a second competition in 2012. The Annual BCI Research Award is the only general award open to any facet of BCI research.

References