The Effect of User Learning for Online EEG Decoding of Upper-Limb Movement Intention

Electroencephalography (EEG) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer a promising way for individuals with motor impairments to control prosthetic or rehabilitation devices. Accurately decoding movement intention (MI) is crucial for translating subjects’ motor execution plans into action. Common challenges in EEG-based BCIs include performance discrepancies, often requiring frequent recalibration of decoding algorithms. The objective of this study was enhancing BCI decoding performance of upper-limb MI identification by exploiting both machine and subjects’ learning and maintaining stable decoding algorithms. Significant performance improvements were observed across most subjects from the first to the last session of the experiment. Some subjects also demonstrated stable performance without requiring any model recalibration between sessions. All subjects achieved high efficacy in online decoding of movement intention, as reflected in improvement of the F1 score from 0.58pm 0.26 in the first session, to 0.84pm 0.13 in the final session. We emphasize the critical importance of allowing users sufficient time to improve their performance in BCIs for upper-limb MI decoding. Unlike existing studies, we specifically evaluate the effect of stable decoding strategies in online and longitudinal BCI sessions, which are key to achieving more reliable and effective BCIs.