Abstract
Motor imagery (MI) is widely used to produce input signals for brain–computer interfaces (BCI) due to the similarities between MI-BCI and the planning–execution cycle. Despite its usefulness, MI tasks can be ambiguous to users and MI produces weaker cortical signals than motor execution. Existing MI guidance systems, which have been reported to provide visual guidance for MI and enhance MI, still have limitations: insufficient immersion for MI or poor expandability to MI for another body parts. We propose a guidance system for MI enhancement that can immerse users in MI and will be easy to extend to other body parts and target motions with few physical constraints. To make easily extendable MI guidance system, the virtual hand illusion is applied to the MI guidance system with a motion tracking sensor. MI enhancement was evaluated in 11 healthy people by comparison with another guidance system and conventional motor commands for BCI. The results showed that the proposed MI guidance system produced an amplified cortical signal compared to pure MI (p < 0.017), and a similar cortical signal as those produced by both actual execution (p > 0.534) and an MI guidance system with the rubber hand illusion (p > 0.722) in the contralateral region. Therefore, we believe that the proposed MI guidance system with the virtual hand illusion is a viable alternative to existing MI guidance systems in various applications with MI-BCI.
Highlights
The present study aims to (1) propose guidance systems for Motor imagery (MI) enhancement that are easy to apply in real-life situations, and (2) evaluate the MI enhancement of the proposed easy to apply in real-life situations, and (2) evaluate the MI enhancement of the proposed system in comparison to that of other MI guidance systems and motor commands for brain–computer interface (BCI)
In spite of the enhancement, some required setups for the rubber hand illusion (RHI)-based based system made system made the the system difficult to apply in various applications with the presence of physical consystem difficult to apply in various applications with the presence of physical constraints
We proposed an extendable MI guidance system and evaluated its capacity for MI enhancement
Summary
Motor imagery (MI) is defined as the mental rehearsal of a movement without any actual movement or muscle activation [1]. It results in a decrease in power of sensorymotor rhythms, called event-related desynchronization (ERD), where the decrease in brain potential usually occurs before the onset of motion [2,3]. Based on this phenomenon, MI ERD has been used to predict motion or movement intention in the brain–computer interface (BCI) field [4,5]. MI ERD shares the frequency band and area with ERD from motor execution (ME) [8,9], it produces significantly less brain cortical activity than
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