After having recorded your mental signals and having squeezed them through nasty algorithms, after having solved the problems of multiple electrode implantation, power supply, and large scale information processing within a device that should not exceed a thumbnail in size, you now have reached a stage where there are merely problems of imagination...
You could start the easy way: Most current BCIs work with computer screens and a cursor or letters, the mental typewriter thing, you name it. Too easy. You would rather go for an egoshooter or a flight simulator to be played by thought. After all, if you can move a cursor, you should be able to move a plane, too (more). The next step would be interaction with the real world. Grabbing, switching machines on and off, or drive a wheelchair, those things should be achievable. Then come the prostheses and the robot arms. That is most definitely another league, though, which you should not even think of before having realised the egoshooter. That is because you will probably need a feedback loop for that (more).

the signals / build BCI 1 / build BCI 2 / build BCI 3
components > build BCI 3
BCI scheme Graz-BCI
- have larger BCI-scheme -


There are millions of receptors that inform the brain about what the body is currently doing, which muscles are shortened and which are not, how the gravitational situation is like and so on. A feedback loop tries to reinsert this kind of information into a BCI.

The eyes offer a simple and efficient way to give the brain feedback without such an artificial loop, but for complex tasks this is probably not enough. Think of someone with a BCI-controlled prosthesis who would want to use it at night, for example. If it is sufficiently dark he won't see his leg, so the visual feedback way is blocked. Being healthy, he could rely on his sensory system, but a simple prosthesis won't have one, at least at the moment.

So the only chance are different, artificial modes of feedback. This is definitely a complex task, as it involves feeding information back into the brain. For such a BCI, the brain would not only "speak" a new language (EEG or firing rates of neurons), but also receive messages in yet another unknown language. But do not worry too much: All this might work, as nerve cells seem to be far more adaptive than previously thought.

Feedback matters (II)

Learn about definitions of BCI, how to build your own one, and what the history of BCIs was like.