Robotically Augmented Mental Practice

Summary

This project will develop and test a new paradigm of motor imagery for facilitating neuromotor excitability and performance of distal muscles in the upper limb by adopting a robotic prosthesis and integrating proven procedures for neuromotor facilitation. The scientific purpose of the study is to understand the effect of controlling a detached robotic prosthesis with proximal muscle activation on brain excitability of the resting arm muscles as well as reaction time. The efficacy of this task will be understood by comparing with other task conditions (motor imagery only, 2D visual feedback on a monitor, etc.) that do not involve the robotic prosthesis. The test of the developed system will be performed in healthy able-bodied adults. The feasibility of the system will be examined in post-stroke adults.

Conditions

• Stroke

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Visual motor imagery (MI)

Subjects will relax their muscles and perform conventional visual motor imagery (MI). With the guidance of audio instruction, the subjects will imagine the grasp and release motions with the right arm for 2 s in each motion in their mind. There will be no proximal muscle contraction.

BEHAVIORAL

Kinesthetic MI

The same MI procedure as Visual MI will be performed, except that the subjects will focus on the kinesthetic sensation that they would feel with the imagined motions.

BEHAVIORAL

Robotic-Hand Interaction with MI

Subjects will perform robotically augmented mental practice for grasp and release motions with the activation control of the proximal muscles. During this task, subjects will also imagine the kinesthetic sensation that they would feel with the corresponding motions with the right arm.

BEHAVIORAL

Robotic-Hand Interaction without MI

Subjects will perform the Robot-Hand Interaction without MI.

BEHAVIORAL

Virtual-Hand Interaction

Subjects will interact with visual feedback of virtual robot actions on a monitor.

BEHAVIORAL

Robotic Action Observation

Subjects will relax their muscles and focus on observing the computer-controlled grasp and release actions of the robotic hand.

BEHAVIORAL

Rest

Subjects will rest without a task.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

  collaborator NIH

• Georgia Institute of Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Minoru Shinohara, Ph.D. · Georgia Institute of Technology

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-05-11

Primary Completion

2023-05-16

Completion

2023-05-16

Countries

• United States

Study Locations