Crowdsourcing neurofeedback data

Crowdsourcing brain data with hundreds of adults could be a new frontier in neuroscience and could lead to new insights about the brain
July 9, 2015

In front of an audience, the collective neurofeedback of 20 participants were projected on the 360° surface of the semi-transparent dome as artistic video animations with soundscapes generated based on a pre-recorded sound library and improvisations from live musicians (credit: Natasha Kovacevic et al./PLoS ONE/Photo: David Pisarek)

In a large-scale art-science installation called My Virtual Dream in Toronto in 2013, more than 500 adults wearing a Muse wireless electroencephalography (EEG) headband inside a 60-foot geodesic dom participated in an unusual neuroscience experiment.

As they played a collective neurofeedback computer game where they were required to manipulate their mental states of relaxation and concentration, the group’s collective EEG signals triggered a catalog of related artistic imagery displayed on the dome’s 360-degree interior, along with spontaneous musical interpretation by live musicians on stage.

“What we’ve done is taken the lab to the public. We collaborated with multimedia artists, made this experiment incredibly engaging, attracted highly motivated subjects, which is not easy to do in the traditional lab setting, and collected useful scientific data from their experience.”

Collective neurofeedback: a new kind of neuroscience research

Participant instructions (credit: Natasha Kovacevic et al./PLoS ONE)

Results from the experiment demonstrated the scientific viability of collective neurofeedback as a potential new avenue of neuroscience research that takes into account individuality, complexity and sociability of the human mind. They also yielded new evidence that neurofeedback learning can have an effect on the brain almost immediately the researchers say.

Studying brains in a social and multi-sensory environment is closer to real life and may help scientists to approach questions of complex real-life social cognition that otherwise are not accessible in traditional labs that study one person’s cognitive functions at a time.

“In traditional lab settings, the environment is so controlled that you can lose some of the fine points of real-time brain activity that occur in a social life setting,” said Natasha Kovacevic, creative producer of My Virtual Dream and program manager of the Centre for Integrative Brain Dynamics at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute.

The massive amount of EEG data collected in one night yielded an interesting and statistically relevant finding: that subtle brain activity changes were taking place within approximately one minute of the neurofeedback learning exercise — unprecedented speed of learning changes that have not been demonstrated before.

Building the world’s first virtual brain

“These results really open up a whole new domain of neuroscience study that actively engages the public to advance our understanding of the brain,” said Randy McIntosh, director of the Rotman Research Institute and vice-president of Research at Baycrest. He is a senior author on the paper.

The idea for the Nuit Blanche art-science experiment was inspired by Baycrest’s ongoing international project to build the world’s first functional, virtual brain — a research and diagnostic tool that could one day revolutionize brain healthcare.

Baycrest cognitive neuroscientists collaborated with artists and gaming and wearable technology industry partners for over a year to create the My Virtual Dream installation. Partners included the University of Toronto, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Muse, and Uken Games.

Plans are underway to travel My Virtual Dream to other cities around the world.


Abstract of ‘My Virtual Dream’: Collective Neurofeedback in an Immersive Art Environment

While human brains are specialized for complex and variable real world tasks, most neuroscience studies reduce environmental complexity, which limits the range of behaviours that can be explored. Motivated to overcome this limitation, we conducted a large-scale experiment with electroencephalography (EEG) based brain-computer interface (BCI) technology as part of an immersive multi-media science-art installation. Data from 523 participants were collected in a single night. The exploratory experiment was designed as a collective computer game where players manipulated mental states of relaxation and concentration with neurofeedback targeting modulation of relative spectral power in alpha and beta frequency ranges. Besides validating robust time-of-night effects, gender differences and distinct spectral power patterns for the two mental states, our results also show differences in neurofeedback learning outcome. The unusually large sample size allowed us to detect unprecedented speed of learning changes in the power spectrum (~ 1 min). Moreover, we found that participants’ baseline brain activity predicted subsequent neurofeedback beta training, indicating state-dependent learning. Besides revealing these training effects, which are relevant for BCI applications, our results validate a novel platform engaging art and science and fostering the understanding of brains under natural conditions.