BCI2000 is a general-purpose system for basic and clinical neurophysiological research. It can also be used for data acquisition, stimulus presentation, and brain monitoring applications. BCI2000 is the basis for a variety of software packages designed to support specific categories of real-time interactions with the CNS in humans and in animals (see “Software” and “Videos”).
Software packages based on BCI2000
BCI2000-based Elizan software
Originally conceived in 1979, and implemented on a Digital Equipment PDP-11/34 microcomputer to support 24/7 operant-conditioning studies in rats, over the past two decades, Elizan has evolved into Elizan III, a portable and scalable BCI2000-based system for long-term animal studies that leverages off-the-shelf hardware and open source software to manage 24/7 operant-conditioning along with continuous data acquisition storage and analysis. Elizan III is based on a layered system model with a front end for configuration and providing ongoing and retrospective analysis results, a middle-ware for analysis, online animal control, and interfacing with a database, and a mySQL database for ongoing storage and rapid analysis of the acquired operant-conditioning trials. Although it can currently only realize one single therapeutic interaction at a time (e.g., H-reflex conditioning), it has no inherent limits to the number of animals that can be controlled, and it has been validated in studies that simultaneously trained up to 10 animals with 2000-8000 daily operant-conditioning trials. The system architecture is hardened against system failures to operate without any interruption 24/7 for several years. For example, the client-server architecture allows for the seamless adoption of new animals, while server-grade hardware with dual power supplies and redundant storage ensures that any hardware failures will not affect the often months-long operant-conditioning trials. Elizan III has been validated in over 50 studies over the past two decades.
Evoked Potential Operant Conditioning System (EPOCS)
Prior to 2013, reflex operant conditioning in humans was performed using a patchwork of research hardware and software, loosely based on the architecture of the pre-existing BCI2000-based Elizan system for animals. As evidence mounted for the protocol’s efficacy, it became necessary to create a stable platform that could be used to replicate the setup in different laboratories and the results in the hands of different researchers and clinicians. In 2013–2014 Jeremy Hill and Aiko Thompson created the Evoked-Potential Operant Conditioning System (EPOCS). This combined the flexibility and tried-and-tested stability of its underlying BCI2000 infrastructure with a new graphical front-end that guides the operator through the stages of the protocol and provides the necessary on-the-fly analysis to link each stage to the next. The platform included specifications for reliable default hardware while providing sufficient flexibility for use with a range of alternative amplifiers and stimulators if necessary. As such, it quickly became the basis for all of MUSC’s and NCAN’s human operant-conditioning studies over the subsequent decade, and has been disseminated to several laboratories outside NCAN. EPOCS has been described in detail, in the context of a basic ROC protocol, by Hill et al. (2022). It has also inspired the development of a commercial clone by BioCircuit Technologies (see Collaborative Project #6: Clinical System for Reflex Operant Conditioning).
Mission
The mission of the BCI2000 project is to facilitate research and applications in the areas described above.
Vision
Our vision is that BCI2000 will become a widely used software tool for diverse areas of real-time biosignal processing.
Availability
The BCI2000 system is available for free for non-profit research and educational purposes. We have provided it to over 6000 users around the world.
BCI2000 development has been supported by an NIH (NIBIB) R01 grant and an NIH (NIBIB/NINDS) Bioengineering Research Partnership grant, and it is currently supported by an NIH (NINDS) R01 grant and an NIH (NINDS) U24 grant. It is the core technology of our Center.
