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Umair Hassan edited this page Dec 25, 2019 · 13 revisions

Brain Electrophysiological recording and STimulation (BEST) Toolbox, is a MATLAB based open source software that interfaces with a wide variety of EEG, EMG, TMS and other stimulating devices, and allows to run flexibly configured but fully automated closed-loop protocols.

BEST Toolbox allows user to run customized Brain Stimulation experiments including basic measures of cortical excitability such as motor hotspot search, motor threshold hunting, motor evoked potential (MEP) and TMS-evoked EEG potential (TEP) measurements, estimation of stimulus-response curves, rTMS intervention protocols, etc., and since recently also real-time EEG-triggered stimulation.

Along with its many technical abilities, the toolbox features a state-of-the-art and flexible Graphical User Interface (GUI) so that the users can easily design experiments, online interactions with the data, visualization of data and a standardized format for the data being collected.

Hardware Interfaces

BEST Toolbox is currently optimized for BOSS Box (BlindSight, DE), a data processing and control system implemented as Simulink© Real-Time model on a high performance computer system receiving a digital real-time data stream from an EEG system such such as:

  • NeurOne TESLA (Bittium, FL)
  • actiCHamp Plus (BrainProducts, DE)

Additionaly a native implementation of following buffers is also part of the toolbox

  • FieldTrip Real-Time Buffer

Input Devices

The BOSS Box and FieldTrip real-time buffer in turn allows the BEST Toolbox to interface with a wide variety of hardware and streaming platforms. Including but not limited to followings:

  • Java
  • Python
  • Arduino
  • BCI2000 includes the FieldTripBuffer and the FieldTripBufferSource modules
  • BrainVision
  • NeurOne TESLA
  • BrainStream
  • ANT NeuroSDK
  • Artinis Medical Systems (NIRS)
  • BrainVision Recorder
  • Biosemi
  • CTF (MEG)
  • Emotiv
  • Neuromag/Elekta (MEG)
  • Jinga-Hi (LFP/EEG)
  • Micromed (ECoG)
  • ModularEEG/OpenEEG
  • Neuralynx (LFP)
  • Neurosky ThinkCap
  • OpenBCI
  • TMSI
  • TOBI

The details about implementation of FieldTrip real-time buffer can be found here .

Output Devices

BEST Toolbox is integrated with MAGIC toolbox in order to control and interact directly with TMS devices such as:

  • MagVenture
  • MagStim
  • BiStim
  • Rapid

In addition, it can also trigger any stimulation devices that can receive a TTL input trigger.