Tidoni Emmanuele, Gergondet Pierre, Fusco Gabriele, Kheddar Abderrahmane, Aglioti Salvatore M
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2017 Jun;25(6):772-781. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2016.2597863. Epub 2016 Aug 3.
The efficient control of our body and successful interaction with the environment are possible through the integration of multisensory information. Brain-computer interface (BCI) may allow people with sensorimotor disorders to actively interact in the world. In this study, visual information was paired with auditory feedback to improve the BCI control of a humanoid surrogate. Healthy and spinal cord injured (SCI) people were asked to embody a humanoid robot and complete a pick-and-place task by means of a visual evoked potentials BCI system. Participants observed the remote environment from the robot's perspective through a head mounted display. Human-footsteps and computer-beep sounds were used as synchronous/asynchronous auditory feedback. Healthy participants achieved better placing accuracy when listening to human footstep sounds relative to a computer-generated sound. SCI people demonstrated more difficulty in steering the robot during asynchronous auditory feedback conditions. Importantly, subjective reports highlighted that the BCI mask overlaying the display did not limit the observation of the scenario and the feeling of being in control of the robot. Overall, the data seem to suggest that sensorimotor-related information may improve the control of external devices. Further studies are required to understand how the contribution of residual sensory channels could improve the reliability of BCI systems.
通过整合多感官信息，我们能够有效地控制身体并与环境成功互动。脑机接口（BCI）或许能让患有感觉运动障碍的人在现实世界中积极互动。在本研究中，视觉信息与听觉反馈相结合，以改善对人形替身的BCI控制。研究要求健康人和脊髓损伤（SCI）患者操控人形机器人，并借助视觉诱发电位BCI系统完成抓取和放置任务。参与者通过头戴式显示器从机器人的视角观察远程环境。将人类脚步声和电脑哔哔声用作同步/异步听觉反馈。相较于电脑生成的声音，健康参与者在听到人类脚步声时放置精度更高。在异步听觉反馈条件下，SCI患者在操控机器人时遇到了更多困难。重要的是，主观报告强调，覆盖在显示器上的BCI面罩并未限制对场景的观察以及对机器人的控制感。总体而言，数据似乎表明，与感觉运动相关的信息可能会改善对外部设备的控制。还需要进一步研究，以了解残余感觉通道的作用如何提高BCI系统的可靠性。
