Prof. Niels Birbaumer, Ph.D, born 1945, Ph.D. 1969, University of Vienna, Austria: Ph.D. in Biological Psychology, Art History and Statistics. 1975-1993 Full Professor of Clinical and Physiological Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany. 1986-1988 Full Professor of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Since 1993 Professor of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tübingen and Professor of Clinical Psychophysiology, University of Padova, Italy. Since 2002 Director of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Trento, Italy. Research topics: Neuronal basis of learning and plasticity. Neurophysiology & Psychophysiology of pain. Neuroprosthetics, Neurorehabilitation. More than 450 publications in peer-reviewed journals. 12 books. Among many awards: Leibniz-Award of the German Research Society (DFG), member of the German Academy of Science and Literature President of the European Association of Behavior Therapy, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the American Association of Applied Psychophysiology. Award for Research in Neuromuscular Diseases, Wilhelm-Wundt-Medal of the German Society of Psychology, and the Albert Einstein Award of the World Cultural Council.
BMIs using EEG or ECoG in the complete locked in state(CLIS) were largely unsucessessful, no proven case learning to communicate with a BMI is documented. We present the first case of a CLIS patient in advanced ALS who learned reliable yes-no communication with a BMI using blood oxygenation measure with NIRS after months of random performance with an EEG-BMI. Reasons for this results are discussed. Secondly, a controlled-double blind trial in chronic stroke without residual movement using sensorimotor rhythm (SMR)- EEG-BMI in combination with behavioral physiotherapy that for the first time a significant improvement upper hand function in this treatment resistant population is possible.The experimental group received contingent feedback of SMR-desynchronization with a hand robotic device fixed to arm and hand, the controls random feedback.In addition to marked behavioral improvement cortical reorganisation was demonstrated in the experimental group only with fMRI: in the course of BMI training activity moved from the healthy hemisphere to the ipsilesional hemisphere.Half a year follow up showed further improvement but reduced differences between the two groups due to long-term effects of the behavioral physiotherapy affecting both groups. We hypothesize that EEG-BMI fails in CLIS while NIRS-BCI works, but EEG-BCI is highly promising in chronic stroke without residual hand movement. Finally, first controlled studies from our lab using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI)-BMI are reported: subcortical brain systems , responsible for emotional disorders are trained to increase or decrease their activity and effects on behavior are assessed : studies involving unconscious emotional processing, nicotine addiction, psychopathy and schizophrenia showed some promising results. Funding Information Supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung(BMBF), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Motorika, Israel, European Research Council (ERC) and NIH, NINDS