Visual Imagery-Based Brain-Computer Interaction Paradigms and Neural Encoding and Decoding

Imagination is a significant mental activity of human beings that can serve as a brain-computer interaction (BCI) paradigm, and visual imagery (VI) has become a relatively new BCI paradigm. VI is the ability to form visual representations in short-term memory without retinal input, offering users advantages like safety and rich content. It is anticipated to address the limitations of traditional BCI paradigms. However, further research is needed in the neural mechanisms, paradigm design, neural encoding, and decoding of VI-based BCI. Despite the existence of experimental studies on VI-BCI, there is a shortage of comprehensive reviews. This article provides a review of the neural mechanisms of VI, and explores paradigm designs for VI-BCI. Additionally, it covers neural encoding and decoding methods. Finally, the existing issues and suggested future research directions for VI-BCI are identified. The aim is to inspire further research in the field of VI-BCI.