Advanced Brain-computer Interface for Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation

This thesis investigates the challenges associated with the use of Brain-Computer
Interface (BCI) technology for post-stroke upper limb rehabilitation. Although
BCI has gained increasing attention as a potential tool for stroke rehabilitation,
different BCI designs have been used in clinical trials, resulting in different clinical
outcomes. One of the main motivations of this research is to investigate the
differences in BCI designs, including differences in the settings and parameters
of the BCI system, in order to find the most effective BCI paradigms for upper
limb stroke rehabilitation.
Another challenge with the use of BCI for stroke rehabilitation is that a considerable
number of stroke patients are dismissed from the study due to their inability
to use the BCI. Most of the clinical studies in BCI rehabilitation use the brain signals
from the ipsilesional hemisphere, which may not be suitable for all patients,
as their ability to modulate these signals can be significantly affected depending
on the lesion size and location. Therefore, this thesis also investigates the use
of contralesional hemisphere signals as an alternative approach to BCI rehabilitation.
Finally, the current BCI equipment is expensive, complex, and mainly used in a
hospital or lab. This research develops a portable BCI system for home-based rehabilitation, allowing patients to use the technology with remote supervision.
The proposed BCI system is evaluated through a clinical trial to assess its feasibility
and acceptability.
Altogether, by addressing the challenges associated with BCI-based rehabilitation,
this thesis contributes to the development of more effective and accessible
BCI-based rehabilitation methods.