Comparison of Classifier Calibration Schemes for Movement Intention Detection in Individuals with Cerebral Palsy for Inducing Plasticity with Brain–Computer Interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have successfully been used for stroke rehabilitation by pairing movement intentions with, e.g., functional electrical stimulation. It has also been proposed that BCI training is beneficial for people with cerebral palsy (CP). To develop BCI training for CP patients, movement intentions must be detected from single-trial EEG. The study aim was to detect movement intentions in CP patients and able-bodied participants using different classification scenarios to show the technical feasibility of BCI training in CP patients. Five CP patients and fifteen able-bodied participants performed wrist extensions and ankle dorsiflexions while EEG was recorded. All but one participant repeated the experiment on 1-2 additional days. The EEG was divided into movement intention and idle epochs that were classified with a random forest classifier using temporal, spectral, and template matching features to estimate movement intention detection performance. When calibrating the classifier on data from the same day and participant, 75% and 85% classification accuracies were obtained for CP- and able-bodied participants, respectively. The performance dropped by 5-15 percentage points when training the classifier on data from other days and other participants. In conclusion, movement intentions can be detected from single-trial EEG, indicating the technical feasibility of using BCIs for motor training in people with CP.