The cortical activation pattern by a rehabilitation robotic hand: a functional NIRS study

Abstract

Introduction: Clarification of the relationship between external stimuli and brain response has been an important topic in neuroscience and brain rehabilitation. In the current study, using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we attempted to investigate cortical activation patterns generated during execution of a rehabilitation robotic hand.Methods: Ten normal subjects were recruited for this study. Passive movements of the right fingers were performed using a rehabilitation robotic hand at a frequency of 0.5 Hz. We measured values of oxy-hemoglobin (HbO), deoxy-hemoglobin (HbR) and total-hemoglobin (HbT) in five regions of interest: the primary sensory-motor cortex (SM1), hand somatotopy of the contralateral SM1, supplementary motor area (SMA), premotor cortex (PMC), and prefrontal cortex (PFC).Results: HbO and HbT values indicated significant activation in the left SM1, left SMA, left PMC, and left PFC during execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand (uncorrected, p < 0.01). By contrast, HbR value indicated significant activation only in the hand somatotopic area of the left SM1 (uncorrected, p < 0.01).Conclusions: Our results appear to indicate that execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand could induce cortical activation.

Reshaping cortical activity with subthalamic stimulation in Parkinson's disease during finger tapping and gait mapped by near infrared spectroscopy

“…As part of the publicly-available NIRS processing toolboxes, the uncorrected curation is used by default, e.g. in FC-NIRS (Xu et al, 2015), NIRS-SPM (Ye et al, 2009), and even in other NIRS studies with multiple subjects (Bae et al, 2017;Chang et al, 2014).…”

There is No test–retest reliability of brain activation induced by robotic passive hand movement: A functional NIRS study

“…The simultaneous flexion/extension of the four fingers was implemented in one degree of freedom motion produced by a four-bar linkage mechanism. This mechanism has been synthesized so that it can accurately track a predefined trajectory generated by actual finger movement (Chang et al, 2014). In this environment, the time delay control (TDC) was implemented with a sampling time of 0.002 s (Youcef-Toumi & Ito, 1988).…”

Brain plasticity and rehabilitation by using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

“…Indeed clarification of the relationship between external devices applications and brain response has been an important topic in plasticity and brain rehabilitation. For example, recently cortical activation patterns generated during execution of a rehabilitation robotic hand was monitored (Chang et al, 2014). Passive movements of the right fingers were performed using a rehabilitation robotic hand at a frequency of 0.5 Hz while values of 02Hb, HHb and total-hemoglobin (HbT) were registered.…”