Virtual Reality Attention Training in Stroke Patients

Summary

Hemispatial neglect is a post-stroke condition in which patients fail to detect stimuli presented on the side of space opposite to the damaged brain hemisphere (contralesional space). To date, there is no established effective treatment for this condition. A virtual reality (VR) behavioral training for the attention deficits characteristic of patients with hemispatial neglect was developed. Patients are stimulated in the visual and auditory modality to orient towards the contralesional side and are rewarded for detecting targets on this side in this training. In the current study the researchers aim to answer two main questions: 1) how feasible is a VR game-based intervention in stroke patients? and 2) what is the efficacy of the virtual reality game-based intervention in reducing the attention deficits characteristic of hemispatial neglect? To answer these questions a randomized partially double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study will be conducted. Two within-subject conditions will be compared: in the active condition patients will play a VR game in which multisensory stimulation is progressively presented in the neglected region (the location where previously presented targets were missed by the patient) and in the placebo condition patients will play a VR game in which the stimulation is presented in the center of of the VR environment. Neglect symptoms will be measured on a two-daily basis to establish the trend of symptom recovery through time. The hypothesis states that symptoms will recover more quickly when patients receive the active version of the VR intervention compared to the placebo version of the VR intervention.

Conditions

• Hemispatial Neglect

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Active Intervention

An audiovisual expanding (looming) stimulus is presented repeatedly to patients during the intervention (Dent \& Humphreys, 2011). During the game a disk is presented to the player. This disk expands and contracts in size. The presentation of the disk coincides with the presentation of a sound that matches in frequency. The disk predicts the location where the next target will be presented. The player must discriminate between two types of target stimuli that are presented at the center of the disk. To discriminate between the two targets, the player receives a limited time window. The location of the disk and target stimuli are adjusted in real-time as a function of the player's performance. The primary goal of this algorithm is to present the multisensory looming stimuli more frequently in the contralesional field than in the ipsilesional field.

BEHAVIORAL

Placebo Intervention

The active and placebo intervention are identical in all aspects except for the fact that stimulus presentation will be located in the center of the visual field.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• KU Leuven

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Céline Gillebert, Prof. Dr. · KU Leuven

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-05-03

Primary Completion

2023-08-31

Completion

2023-08-31

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations