A Portable Solution for Simultaneous Human Movement and Mobile EEG Acquisition: Readiness Potentials for Basketball Free-throw Shooting

TL;DR

This study introduces a portable, smartphone-based system for simultaneous EEG and movement monitoring during basketball free throws, enabling real-world analysis of brain activity and movement patterns.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, lightweight, and cost-effective mobile setup combining smartphones and wireless EEG to study brain-movement relationships outside labs.

Findings

Readiness potential detected before free throws

RP amplitude not linked to shot success

Pose differences observed between successful and unsuccessful shots

Abstract

Advances in wireless electroencephalography (EEG) technology promise to record brain-electrical activity in everyday situations. To better understand the relationship between brain activity and natural behavior, it is necessary to monitor human movement patterns. Here, we present a pocketable setup consisting of two smartphones to simultaneously capture human posture and EEG signals. We asked 26 basketball players to shoot 120 free throws each. First, we investigated whether our setup allows us to capture the readiness potential (RP) that precedes voluntary actions. Second, we investigated whether the RP differs between successful and unsuccessful free-throw attempts. The results confirmed the presence of the RP, but the amplitude of the RP was not related to shooting success. However, offline analysis of real-time human pose signals derived from a smartphone camera revealed pose differences between successful and unsuccessful shots for some individuals. We conclude that a highly portable, low-cost and lightweight acquisition setup, consisting of two smartphones and a head-mounted wireless EEG amplifier, is sufficient to monitor complex human movement patterns and associated brain dynamics outside the laboratory.