IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2020 Jul;28(7):1614-1622. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2020.2998123.
Visual information plays an essential role in enhancing neural activity during mental practices. Previous research has shown that using different visual scenarios during mental practices that involve imagining the movement of a specific body part may result in differences in performance. Many of these scenarios utilize the concept of embodiment, or one's observation of another entity to be a part of oneself, to improve practice quality of the imagined body movement. We therefore hypothesized that applying immersive virtual reality headsets, with their ability to provide rich immersion and illusion by presenting egocentrically simulated virtual scenarios, and action observation to motor imagery practice will result in significant improvement. To explore the possible synergy between immersive systems and motor imagery, we analyzed the electroencephalogram signals of our participants as they were presented the same virtual hand movement scenario with two different mediums: an immersive virtual reality headset and a monitor display. Our experimental results provide evidence that the immersive virtual reality headsets induced improved rhythmic patterns with better discriminating spatial features from the brain compared to the monitor display. These findings suggest that the use of immersive virtual reality headsets, with the illusion and embodiment they provide, can effectively improve motor imagery training.
视觉信息在增强心理练习中的神经活动方面起着至关重要的作用。先前的研究表明，在涉及想象特定身体部位运动的心理练习中使用不同的视觉场景可能会导致表现的差异。这些场景中的许多都利用了体现或观察另一个实体成为自身一部分的概念，以提高想象中的身体运动的练习质量。因此，我们假设应用沉浸式虚拟现实耳机，通过呈现自我中心模拟的虚拟场景和动作观察来提供丰富的沉浸感和幻觉，将导致显著的改善。为了探索沉浸式系统和运动想象之间的可能协同作用，我们分析了参与者的脑电图信号，他们在两种不同的媒介中呈现相同的虚拟手部运动场景：沉浸式虚拟现实耳机和显示器。我们的实验结果提供了证据，表明与显示器相比，沉浸式虚拟现实耳机通过从大脑中更好地区分空间特征来诱导出改进的节奏模式。这些发现表明，使用沉浸式虚拟现实耳机，以及它们提供的幻觉和体现，可以有效地改善运动想象训练。
