An MRI Compatible Visual Force-Feedback System for the Study of Force Control Mechanics

Abstract

Abstract-Motor task experiments play an essential role in exploring the brain mechanisms of movement control, and visual force-feedback is an important factor in these motor experiments. In this paper, the authors proposed a visual forcefeedback system suitable for neuroscience experiment. With this system, the force output produced by participants can be detected and recorded in real time, while force output was visually displayed as a feedback cue to the participants simultaneously. Furthermore, this force feedback system is MRI compatible, and can be used both in fMRI and ERP experiments. The proposed system has been applied in handgrip tasks and finger movement experiments, which were designed to explore the relationship between force output and brain activation mode in normal subject and stroke patient. The results demonstrated that various force levels were well detected and visual feedback signals enabled the accomplishment of experiments with both fixed and variable target force levels.

Neural Activation and Functional Connectivity during Motor Imagery of Bimanual Everyday Actions

“…To test for potential movements during motor imagery, participants held two force sensitive grips in their hands [21]. Hand grip data recorded during the scanning session were averaged for each condition and participant.…”

“…To test for potential movements during motor imagery, participants held two custom made force sensitive grips in their hands [21] which acquired data continuously throughout all conditions with a 250 Hz sampling rate. The grips are highly sensitive to force changes and are able to detect force variations not visible by visual inspection.…”

An engineered glove for investigating the neural correlates of finger movements using functional magnetic resonance imaging

“…In this context, there is the need of MR-compatible devices, which can be used during fMRI not introducing risks for patient safety and image quality. Research labs are very active in designing prototypes of innovative MR-compatible movement measurement systems based on accelerometers and gyroscopes (Schaechter et al, 2006 ; Kim et al, 2013 ), or video tracking (Hauptmann et al, 2009 ), or video and force sensors (Hou et al, 2005 ; Rogers et al, 2010 ). However, relatively few fMRI motor studies have recorded performance on-line because the signal from a motion sensor can be grossly contaminated by noise induced from the scanning environment, and because presence of a sensor during fMRI can result in image artifacts.…”