Closed-Loop Feedback Control for Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Because of rising demand for human analysts and more efficient processing of increasingly large and challenging amounts of intelligence, human limitations on mental workload, cognitive fatigue, and attentionor task engagement, need to be accurately monitored in real-time in order to provide sensitive detection of impaired cognitive states. It is a challenge to continuously monitor these cognitive characteristics, known collectively as dynamic brain information processing capacity (dBIPC) to implement real-time mitigations in a closed-loop feedback system.The overall goal of this Phase I STTR project is to design a closed-loop feedback system that incorporates advanced EEG and fNIR monitoring systems, brain-state classification algorithms and real-time gauges of mental workload, fatigue, and engagement, and a low-noise, high definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) system.Quantum Applied Science and Research (QUASAR), Inc. will contribute advanced dry-electrode electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near infrared (fNIR) sensors with proprietary real-time brain state classification algorithms, while the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) will incorporate modeling techniques from leading experts to determine optimal stimulation parameters for alleviating cognitive impairments, and consultants at Soterix Medical, Inc. will provide a transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) system and necessary expertise to integrate it with the other components.