Motor Learning with EEG Controlled Virtual Muscle
Duncan was awarded an undergraduate research fellowship to research muscle memory formation through EEG. The Electroencephalogram measures electric potentials through an array of electrodes on the scalp. These potentials may rise and fall in response to a variety of activities or mental tasks. For this project the brains alpha waves were measured from the FP2 and O2 electrodes in a 10/20 standard electrode placement.
Standard 10/20 electrode placement
The output of these electrodes was put through a custom EEG amplifier designed in Eagle and fabricated in Auburns Broun hall PCB lab. The amplifier has a gain of approximately 72 dB.
Eagle Schematic of Amplifier Board Design
The output of the EEG amplifier was then fed to the analog input on an Arduino zero where the Fast Fourier Transform was taken to isolate the 7-14 Hz alpha wave component. The power in this frequency was then sent over USB to a windows machine.
Recorded Alpha Waves and their Fourier Transform
Pong Being Played on Windows Machine
The Windows machine runs a modified version of the classic pong videogame which takes alpha wave power as an input and uses it to control the height of a paddle. Participants are able to use this paddle to reflect the ball and play pong. While they do so, their reaction times are recorded and are being analyzed to identify a negative exponential trend that would signify the occurrence of motor learning. Duncan has submitted a paper using the results of this study which is currently undergoing peer review for publication in a journal. In addition the Code to run this project is available on GitHub