Using Haptic fMRI to Enable Interactive Motor Neuroimaging Experiments

Quantitative Testing of fMRI-Compatibility of an Electrically Active Mechatronic Device for Robot-Assisted Sensorimotor Protocols

“…In the pursuit of combining accurate kinesthetic feedback during sensorimotor protocols with simultaneous observation of brain activity via fMRI, researchers have endeavored to build MR-compatible haptic devices to support unconstrained hand movements [12], [21]- [23], hand/finger grasp [7], [24], [25], and foot movements [13], [26]. Such devices need to adhere to strict requirements for MR-compatibility, such as i) avoiding the use of magnetic materials to prevent distortion of the static magnetic field, ii) minimizing electromagnetic signals in both the radio-frequency (RF) and audible range to avoid interference with the RF-transceiver and gradients subsystems used in MRI, and iii) limiting use of in-bore electrical conductors to avoid coupling of eddy currents and Different no.…”

MRI-VisAct: a Bowden-cable-driven MRI-compatible series viscoelastic actuator

“…However, similar to the case with the electrostatic motors, these systems need be placed a certain distance away from the bore of the MRI machine. Along these lines, both mechanical linkages (Li et al 2009;Menon et al 2016) and cable-based transmissions (Spaelter et al 2006) have been employed for remote location of the actuators. Long linkages and cable-based transmissions both introduce undesired elasticity to the system, and the resulting non-collocation adversely affects the control performance of these approaches.…”