Current Study on Brain Computer Interface with Virtual Reality in Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Cerebral stroke has been a great issue in the world due to its high mortality rate and disability rate. Rehabilitation for stroke patients has been a hot research field. However, conventional therapies for disabled patients depend mainly on medication and rehabilitation therapist, which is a painful and time-consuming process. Besides, the rehabilitation process requires volitional movement, which is a challenge for severe stroke patients. Therefore, researchers came up with an approach to combine brain-computer interface (BCI) with traditional therapies. Through brain-computer interface technology, researchers collect brain signals to strengthen the motor pathway. Virtual reality (VR) is also a new technique that can be utilized in rehabilitation. This paper studied research from several teams. A research team came up with a hybrid VR-BCI system and designed a classification model based on neural network. Another research team introduced an experiment on a VR- BCI combined platform called REINVENT. The team assessed the feasibility and effect of the platform by analyzing data collected during the study. In addition, A VR game was developed for mild patients. Current studies on VR-BCI combined system have proved its feasibility. However, more clinical data and further research are also needed to assess its effect on rehabilitation.