Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Zhong, Yucun
• Yao, Lin
• Wang, Ji
• Wang, Yueming

Titel

Tactile Sensation Assisted Motor Imagery Training for Enhanced BCI Performance: A Randomized Controlled Study

Ist Teil von

• IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering, 2023-02, Vol.70 (2), p.694-702

Ort / Verlag

United States: IEEE

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

IEL

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Objective: Independent of conventional neurofeedback training, in this study, we propose a tactile sensation assisted motor imagery training (SA-MI Training) approach to improve the performance of MI-based BCI. Methods: Twenty-six subjects were recruited and randomly divided into a Training-Group and a Control-Group. All subjects were required to perform three blocks of MI tasks. In the Training-Group, during the second block (SA-MI Training block), tactile stimulation was applied to the left or right wrist while the subjects were performing the left or right-hand MI task, while during the first block (Pre-Training block) and the third block (Post-Training block), subjects performed pure MI tasks without the tactile sensation assistance. In contrast, in the Control-Group, subjects performed the left and right-hand MI tasks in all three blocks. Results: The performance of the Post-Training block (83.2 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\pm</tex-math></inline-formula> 11.4%) was significantly ( p = 0.0014) higher than that of the Pre-Training block (73.2 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\pm</tex-math></inline-formula> 16.3%). By contrast, in the Control-Group, no significant difference was found among the three blocks. Moreover, after the SA-MI Training, the motor-related cortex activation (i.e., ERD/ERS) and the R<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">^{2}</tex-math></inline-formula> coefficient in the alpha-beta band were enhanced, while no training effect was found in the Control-Group. Conclusion: The proposed SA-MI Training approach can significantly improve the performance of MI, which provides a novel training framework for MI-based BCI. Significance: It may be especially beneficial to those who are with difficulty in convention neurofeedback training or performing pure MI mental tasks to gain BCI control.