Effects of Repeating a Tactile Brain-Computer Interface on Patients with Disorder of Consciousness: A Hint of Recovery?

Brain-computer interface (BCI) has been emerging as an assessment tool for patients with disorder of consciousness (DOC). With the advantages of high time resolution, low cost and portable design, EEG based BCI systems are especially suitable for bedside measurement. Recent studies showed the successful application of an EEG based BCI on DOC assessment and communication. However, the effect of repeated BCI measurement on this patient group is not clear. In this study, a tactile BCI paradigm was repeated 12 runs for 10 consecutive days on 5 DOC patients. Although the BCI performance varied among runs and days, every patient reached at least once the accuracy above 60%. Moreover, the Coma Recovery Scale Revised improved on two out of the five patients. This study addressed the significance of repeating a tactile BCI on DOC patients, and indicates a promising recovery effect of a tactile BCI on DOC patients.