Brain Computer Interfaces: A literature review

Introduction: Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) have significantly improved the quality of life of patients who use such technologies, restoring their health problems, such as hearing loss, vision, motor difficulties. Purpose: The purpose of this literature review was to describe recent developments in the field of BCI systems and related work that has been implemented in the last two decades. Methodology: A literature search of scientific articles of the last twenty years was carried out in the electronic databases PubMed and Scopus. The following keywords were used: brain-computer interface, BCI systems, privacy, neuroethics as well as synonyms and combinations of the terms. Results: The research field of BCI systems is a relatively new interdisciplinary field that integrates research groups from neuroscience, physiology, psychology, engineering, computer science, rehabilitation and other technical and health disciplines. Conclusions: The current trend of BCI systems is to enable new innovative communication paradigms, such as communication between human brains and communication between human brains and the Internet. Despite the benefits brought by this technological progress, it also creates opportunities for malicious actors to attack these systems, resulting in the threat of personal information of users as well as their physical integrity, but also affecting all activities that are directly or indirectly guided by BCI systems.