Review Article

Brain-Computer Interface for Clinical Purposes: Cognitive Assessment and Rehabilitation

Table 1

BCI applications to cognitive assessment.

Study (year)Signals/EEG-based paradigmsSampleMeasure (test)Tested VariablesPatients’ training required (yes/no)

Iversen & coll. (2008a)SCPs2 late-stage ALS patientsDelayed matching-to-sample taskAccuracy (% of correct responses)Yes
Iversen & coll. (2008b)SCPs1 late-stage ALS patientConditional-associative learning taskAccuracy (% of correct responses)Yes
Perego & coll. (2011)SSVEP19 healthy subjectsRCPM, CFITTotal scores and total execution time for tests; total moves and bit-rate for BCI performanceYes
Perego & coll. (2011)SSVEP26 patients with different neurological diseases (cerebral palsy, dystrophies and paresis)RCPMTotal scores and total execution time for tests; bit-rate for BCI performanceYes
Cipresso & coll. (2012)P300 ERP8 healthy subjectsPhonemic and Semantic VF test (modified version); psychological and usability questionnaireBCI classification accuracy; execution time and errors at VF test; questionnaires’ scoresNo
Cipresso & coll. (2013)P300 ERP8 healthy subjects and one ALS patientPhonemic and Semantic Verbal Fluency test (modified version), psychological and usability questionnaireBCI classification accuracy; execution time and errors at VF test; questionnaires’ scoresNo
Li & coll. (2015)SSVEP + P300 ERP11 brain-injured patients (6 VS, 3 MCS, 2 EMCS)Number recognition, number comparison, mental calculationAccuracy rate and number of trials for each testNo
Westergren & coll. (2016)SSVEP11 healthy subjectsFour cognitive tests resembling WAIS test batteryBCI classification accuracy, ITR and tests’ scoreNo
Poletti & coll. (2016)P300 ERP15 moderate-stage ALS patients and 15 healthy controlsToken Test, RCPM, d2 test, MCSTTests’ total scores and execution timesNo

SCPs: slow cortical potentials; SSVEP: steady state visually evoked potentials; ERP: event-related potentials; ALS: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; VS: vegetative state; MCS: minimally conscious state; EMCS: emerged from MCS; RCPM: Raven’s colored progressive matrices test; CFIT: Culture Fair Intelligence Test; VF: Verbal Fluency test; WAIS: Wechsler adult intelligence scale; MCST: modified card sorting test; ITR: information transfer rate.