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Effects of a Brain-Computer Interface With Virtual Reality (VR) Neurofeedback: A Pilot Study in Chronic Stroke Patients.

Athanasios Vourvopoulos | Octavio Marin Pardo | Stéphanie Lefebvre | Meghan Neureither | David Saldana | Esther Jahng | Sook-Lei Liew
Frontiers in human neuroscience | 2019

Rehabilitation for stroke patients with severe motor impairments (e.g., inability to perform wrist or finger extension on the affected side) is burdensome and difficult because most current rehabilitation options require some volitional movement to retrain the affected side. However, although these patients participate in therapy requiring volitional movement, previous research has shown that they may receive modest benefits from action observation, virtual reality (VR), and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These approaches have shown some success in strengthening key motor pathways thought to support motor recovery after stroke, in the absence of volitional movement. The purpose of this study was to combine the principles of VR and BCI in a platform called REINVENT and assess its effects on four chronic stroke patients across different levels of motor impairment. REINVENT acquires post-stroke EEG signals that indicate an attempt to move and drives the movement of a virtual avatar arm, allowing patient-driven action observation neurofeedback in VR. In addition, synchronous electromyography (EMG) data were also captured to monitor overt muscle activity. Here we tested four chronic stroke survivors and show that this EEG-based BCI can be safely used over repeated sessions by stroke survivors across a wide range of motor disabilities. Finally, individual results suggest that patients with more severe motor impairments may benefit the most from EEG-based neurofeedback, while patients with more mild impairments may benefit more from EMG-based feedback, harnessing existing sensorimotor pathways. We note that although this work is promising, due to the small sample size, these results are preliminary. Future research is needed to confirm these findings in a larger and more diverse population.

Pubmed ID: 31275126

Research resources used in this publication

None found

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

  • Agency: NICHD NIH HHS, United States
    Id: K01 HD091283

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


MATLAB (tool)

RRID:SCR_001622

Multi paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth generation programming language developed by MathWorks. Allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages, including C, C++, Java, Fortran and Python. Used to explore and visualize ideas and collaborate across disciplines including signal and image processing, communications, control systems, and computational finance.

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EEGLAB (tool)

RRID:SCR_007292

Interactive Matlab toolbox for processing continuous and event-related EEG, MEG and other electrophysiological data incorporating independent component analysis (ICA), time/frequency analysis, artifact rejection, event-related statistics, and several useful modes of visualization of the averaged and single-trial data. First developed on Matlab 5.3 under Linux, EEGLAB runs on Matlab v5 and higher under Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X (Matlab 7+ recommended). EEGLAB provides an interactive graphic user interface (GUI) allowing users to flexibly and interactively process their high-density EEG and other dynamic brain data using independent component analysis (ICA) and/or time/frequency analysis (TFA), as well as standard averaging methods. EEGLAB also incorporates extensive tutorial and help windows, plus a command history function that eases users'' transition from GUI-based data exploration to building and running batch or custom data analysis scripts. EEGLAB offers a wealth of methods for visualizing and modeling event-related brain dynamics, both at the level of individual EEGLAB ''datasets'' and/or across a collection of datasets brought together in an EEGLAB ''studyset.'' For experienced Matlab users, EEGLAB offers a structured programming environment for storing, accessing, measuring, manipulating and visualizing event-related EEG data. For creative research programmers and methods developers, EEGLAB offers an extensible, open-source platform through which they can share new methods with the world research community by publishing EEGLAB ''plug-in'' functions that appear automatically in the EEGLAB menu of users who download them. For example, novel EEGLAB plug-ins might be built and released to ''pick peaks'' in ERP or time/frequency results, or to perform specialized import/export, data visualization, or inverse source modeling of EEG, MEG, and/or ECOG data. EEGLAB Features * Graphic user interface * Multiformat data importing * High-density data scrolling * Defined EEG data structure * Open source plug-in facility * Interactive plotting functions * Semi-automated artifact removal * ICA & time/frequency transforms * Many advanced plug-in toolboxes * Event & channel location handling * Forward/inverse head/source modeling

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MRIcro Software (tool)

RRID:SCR_008264

MRIcro allows Windows and Linux computers view medical images. It is a standalone program, but includes tools to complement SPM (software that allows neuroimagers to analyze MRI, fMRI and PET images). MRIcro allows efficient viewing and exporting of brain images. In addition, it allows neuropsychologists to identify regions of interest (ROIs, e.g. lesions). MRIcro can create Analyze format headers for exporting brain images to other platforms. Some features of MRIcro are: - Converts medical images to SPM friendly Analyze format. - View Analyze format images (big or little endian). - Create Analyze format headers (big or little endian). - Create 3D regions of interest (with computed volume & intensity). - Overlap multiple regions of interest. - Rotate images to match SPM template images. - Export images to BMP, JPEG, PNG or TIF format. - Yoked images: linked viewing of multiple images (e.g. view same coordinates of PET and MRI scans). Users familiar with other Windows programs will find that this software is fairly straightforward to use. Resting the mouse cursor over a button will cause a text hint to appear over the button. However, a tutorial with a step by step guide of how to use MRIcro with SPM is available.

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CONN (tool)

RRID:SCR_009550

Matlab based cross platform software package for computation, display, and analysis of functional connectivity in fMRI (fcMRI). Used for resting state data (rsfMRI) as well as task related designs. Covers pipeline from raw fMRI data to hypothesis testing.

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OpenViBE (tool)

RRID:SCR_014156

A multi-platform software dedicated to designing, testing and using brain-computer interfaces (BCI). OpenViBE is a software for real-time neurosciences that can be used to acquire, filter, process, classify and visualize brain signals in real time.

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