A Motor Imagery-based Brain-Computer Interface Scheme for a Spinal Muscular Atrophy Subject in CYBATHLON Race

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease that induced severe motor impairments. Motor imagery (MI) based non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) system might serve as assistive tools by facilitating communication and mobility of subjects with severe motor impairment. However, the application of the MI-BCI system in SMA subjects remained limited. Multi-class MI-BCI might be the trend for future applications. The CYBATHLON 2020 BCI Race provided a good competition platform for patients with severe motor impairments. The pilot should control a virtual race game avatar with four different commands using strictly brain activities. In this study, a four-class MI-BCI system was developed for an SMA subject to participate in the CYBATHLON competition. We demonstrated the system's feasibility by introducing the general designs, training procedures, offline processing and online BCI-game setup. Our study might extend future clinical applications of BCI technology in SMA patients.