BCIJelly: An integrated ecosystem for brain-computer interface research

Abstract

Brain-computer interface (BCI) research relies on multistage computational pipelines, yet progress remains constrained by fragmented data formats, heterogeneous decoder implementations and hardware-specific deployment toolchains, and researchers lack an integrated workflow. Here, we fill this gap with BCIJelly, a unified computational ecosystem that integrates 18 curated BCI datasets, 15 benchmark decoders and an algorithmic library of 80 reusable modules, an automated architecture search (AAS) procedure, and hardware-aware deployment through the toChip pipeline within a single Python framework. AAS constructs task-specific decoders without manual architecture design. It is further extended into a closed-loop mode guided by a large language model (LLM), which uses task specifications, module descriptions and search history to support multitask and cross-species decoding. The toChip pipeline compiles trained decoders for execution on neuromorphic chips, enabling energy-efficient deployment for BCI systems. An accompanying visualization software provides a graphical interface to the full workflow, making BCIJelly accessible without programming. We validate BCIJelly across five BCI paradigms (motor, visual, speech, emotion and auditory) with recordings from humans, macaques and mice, and single-task, multitask and cross-species decoding settings. BCIJelly establishes a unified and extensible infrastructure that bridges decoder development and hardware-aware deployment for BCI research.