Post-stroke Hand Rehabilitation with Brain-Robot Interface
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Advancing MEG/EEG based Brain-robot Interface for post-stroke Upper Limb Functional Recovery
IRAS ID
266827
Contact name
Girijesh Prasad
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Ulster University
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN88026375
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Over 20M people suffer from stroke annually worldwide and up to 40% of stroke survivors may suffer from permanent upper limb paralysis. Unfortunately, despite undergoing a range of therapeutic treatments, many people with upper limb impairments (arising from a stroke & other nervous system disorders) fail to make full functional recovery adversely affecting their quality of life and employability. Our previous study showed that electroencephalography (EEG) based Brain-robot interface (BRI) has the potential to provide clinically effective hand therapy to the stroke patients using a hand exoskeleton. However, due to the low spatiotemporal resolution of EEG, the scope of studying the neurophysiological effect of the BRI system was limited. To this end, it is proposed to use magnetoencephalography (MEG) in conjunction with EEG to design an advanced BRI system so that the neurophysiological effect of the BRI system on post-stroke neurorehabilitation can be established. The study aims at looking into the connection between the brain and the muscle activity and exploit it to give intuitive neurofeedback to the stroke patients during the mental practice of the therapeutic task. The study also aims at designing an advanced assist-as-needed control system to optimally challenge the stroke patients during the physical practice of the therapeutic task. The study will also test new algorithms to enhance the reliability and usability of the MEG based BRI systems. Overall, the study will devise new strategies of combined mental and physical practice using a BRI system towards the effective clinical recovery of the post-stroke upper limb functional disability.
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
20/NI/0034
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jun 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion