Navigation and interaction in a real-scale digital mock-up using natural language and user gesture

This paper tries to demonstrate a very new real-scale 3D system and sum up some firsthand and cutting edge results concerning multi-modal navigation and interaction interfaces. This work is part of the CALLISTO-SARI collaborative project. It aims at constructing an immersive room, developing a set of software tools and some navigation/interaction interfaces. Two sets of interfaces will be introduced here: 1) interaction devices, 2) natural language (speech processing) and user gesture. The survey on this system using subjective observation (Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, SSQ) and objective measurements (Center of Gravity, COG) shows that using natural languages and gesture-based interfaces induced less cyber-sickness comparing to device-based interfaces. Therefore, gesture-based is more efficient than device-based interfaces.FUI CALLISTO-SAR

Games and Brain-Computer Interfaces: The State of the Art

BCI gaming is a very young field; most games are proof-of-concepts. Work that compares BCIs in a game environments with traditional BCIs indicates no negative effects, or even a positive effect of the rich visual environments on the performance. The low transfer-rate of current games poses a problem for control of a game. This is often solved by changing the goal of the game. Multi-modal input with BCI forms an promising solution, as does assigning more meaningful functionality to BCI control

Immersive Composition for Sensory Rehabilitation: 3D Visualisation, Surround Sound, and Synthesised Music to Provoke Catharsis and Healing

There is a wide range of sensory therapies using sound, music and visual stimuli. Some focus on soothing or distracting stimuli such as natural sounds or classical music as analgesic, while other approaches emphasize the active performance of producing music as therapy. This paper proposes an immersive multi-sensory Exposure Therapy for people suffering from anxiety disorders, based on a rich, detailed surround-soundscape. This soundscape is composed to include the users’ own idiosyncratic anxiety triggers as a form of habituation, and to provoke psychological catharsis, as a non-verbal, visceral and enveloping exposure. To accurately pinpoint the most effective sounds and to optimally compose the soundscape we will monitor the participants’ physiological responses such as electroencephalography, respiration, electromyography, and heart rate during exposure. We hypothesize that such physiologically optimized sensory landscapes will aid the development of future immersive therapies for various psychological conditions, Sound is a major trigger of anxiety, and auditory hypersensitivity is an extremely problematic symptom. Exposure to stress-inducing sounds can free anxiety sufferers from entrenched avoidance behaviors, teaching physiological coping strategies and encouraging resolution of the psychological issues agitated by the sound

Rehabilitative devices for a top-down approach

In recent years, neurorehabilitation has moved from a "bottom-up" to a "top down" approach. This change has also involved the technological devices developed for motor and cognitive rehabilitation. It implies that during a task or during therapeutic exercises, new "top-down" approaches are being used to stimulate the brain in a more direct way to elicit plasticity-mediated motor re-learning. This is opposed to "Bottom up" approaches, which act at the physical level and attempt to bring about changes at the level of the central neural system. Areas covered: In the present unsystematic review, we present the most promising innovative technological devices that can effectively support rehabilitation based on a top-down approach, according to the most recent neuroscientific and neurocognitive findings. In particular, we explore if and how the use of new technological devices comprising serious exergames, virtual reality, robots, brain computer interfaces, rhythmic music and biofeedback devices might provide a top-down based approach. Expert commentary: Motor and cognitive systems are strongly harnessed in humans and thus cannot be separated in neurorehabilitation. Recently developed technologies in motor-cognitive rehabilitation might have a greater positive effect than conventional therapies

Psychological treatments and psychotherapies in the neurorehabilitation of pain. Evidences and recommendations from the italian consensus conference on pain in neurorehabilitation

BACKGROUND: It is increasingly recognized that treating pain is crucial for effective care within neurological rehabilitation in the setting of the neurological rehabilitation. The Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation was constituted with the purpose identifying best practices for us in this context. Along with drug therapies and physical interventions, psychological treatments have been proven to be some of the most valuable tools that can be used within a multidisciplinary approach for fostering a reduction in pain intensity. However, there is a need to elucidate what forms of psychotherapy could be effectively matched with the specific pathologies that are typically addressed by neurorehabilitation teams. OBJECTIVES: To extensively assess the available evidence which supports the use of psychological therapies for pain reduction in neurological diseases. METHODS: A systematic review of the studies evaluating the effect of psychotherapies on pain intensity in neurological disorders was performed through an electronic search using PUBMED, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Based on the level of evidence of the included studies, recommendations were outlined separately for the different conditions. RESULTS: The literature search yielded 2352 results and the final database included 400 articles. The overall strength of the recommendations was medium/low. The different forms of psychological interventions, including Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, cognitive or behavioral techniques, Mindfulness, hypnosis, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Brief Interpersonal Therapy, virtual reality interventions, various forms of biofeedback and mirror therapy were found to be effective for pain reduction in pathologies such as musculoskeletal pain, fibromyalgia, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Central Post-Stroke pain, Phantom Limb Pain, pain secondary to Spinal Cord Injury, multiple sclerosis and other debilitating syndromes, diabetic neuropathy, Medically Unexplained Symptoms, migraine and headache. CONCLUSIONS: Psychological interventions and psychotherapies are safe and effective treatments that can be used within an integrated approach for patients undergoing neurological rehabilitation for pain. The different interventions can be specifically selected depending on the disease being treated. A table of evidence and recommendations from the Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation is also provided in the final part of the pape

Enhanced attention using head-mounted virtual reality

Some evidence suggests that experiencing a given scenario using virtual reality (VR) may engage greater attentional resources than experiencing the same scenario on a 2D computer monitor. However, the underlying neural processes associated with these VR-related effects, especially those pertaining to current consumer-friendly head-mounted displays of virtual reality (HMD-VR), remain unclear. Here, two experiments were conducted to compare task performance and EEG-based neural metrics captured during a perceptual discrimination task presented on two different viewing platforms. Forty participants (20–25 years old) completed this task using both an HMD-VR and traditional computer monitor in a within-group, randomized design. Although Experiment I (n = 20) was solely behavioral in design, Experiment II (n = 20) utilized combined EEG recordings to interrogate the neural correlates underlying potential performance differences across platforms. These experiments revealed that (1) there was no significant difference in the amount of arousal measured between platforms and (2) selective attention abilities in HMD-VR environment were enhanced from both a behavioral and neural perspective. These findings suggest that the allocation of attentional resources in HMD-VR may be superior to approaches more typically used to assess these abilities (e.g., desktop/laptop/tablet computers with 2D screens)

Midfrontal theta transcranial alternating current stimulation modulates behavioural adjustment after error execution

Cognitive control during conflict monitoring, error processing, and post-error adjustment appear to be associated with the occurrence of midfrontal theta (MFϴ). While this association is supported by correlational EEG studies, much less is known about the possible causal link between MFϴ and error and conflict processing. In the present study, we aimed to explore the role of band-specific effects in modulating the error system during a conflict resolution. In turn, we delivered transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at different frequency bands (delta δ, theta θ, alpha α, beta β, gamma γ) and sham stimulation over the medial frontal cortex (MFC) in 36 healthy participants performing a modified version of the Flanker task. Task performance and reports about the sensations (e.g. visual flickering, cutaneous burning) induced by the different frequency bands, were also recorded. We found that online θ-tACS increased the response speed to congruent stimuli after error execution with respect to sham stimulation. Importantly, the accuracy following the errors did not decrease because of speed-accuracy trade off. Moreover, tACS evoked visual and somatosensory sensations were significantly stronger at α-tACS and β-tACS compared to other frequencies. Our findings suggest that theta activity plays a causative role in modulating behavioural adjustments during perceptual choices in a stimulus-response conflict task. © 2018 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Lt

Decoding subjective emotional arousal from EEG during an immersive Virtual Reality experience

Immersive virtual reality (VR) enables naturalistic neuroscientific studies while maintaining experimental control, but dynamic and interactive stimuli pose methodological challenges. We here probed the link between emotional arousal, a fundamental property of affective experience, and parieto-occipital alpha power under naturalistic stimulation:37 young healthy adults completed an immersive VR experience, which included rollercoaster rides, while their EEG was recorded. They then continuously rated their subjective emotional arousal while viewing a replay of their experience. The association between emotional arousal and parieto-occipital alpha power was tested and confirmed by (1) decomposing the continuous EEG signal while maximizing the comodulation between alpha power and arousal ratings and by (2) decoding periods of high and low arousal with discriminative common spatial patterns and a Long Short-Term Memory recurrent neural network.We successfully combine EEG and a naturalistic immersive VR experience to extend previous findings on the neurophysiology of emotional arousal towards real-world neuroscience.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest