Nguyen Anh T, Anand Ajay, Johnson Michelle J
Anh T. Nguyen is with the School of Science and Applied Science, Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Ajay Anand is with the Rehab Robotics Lab under the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, & Perception Lab (GRASP Lab), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Proc IEEE RAS EMBS Int Conf Biomed Robot Biomechatron. 2024 Sep;2024:1795-1801. doi: 10.1109/biorob60516.2024.10719790. Epub 2024 Oct 23.
Action observation (AO) therapy is a promising rehabilitative treatment for motor and language function in individuals recovering from neurological conditions, such as stroke. This pilot study aimed to investigate the potential of humanoid robots to support AO therapy in rehabilitation settings. The brain activity of three healthy right-handed participants was monitored with electroencephalography (EEG) while they observed eight different actions performed by two agents, a human actor and a robot, using their left and right arms. Their event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs, changes in the spectral power of neural oscillations in response to an event or stimulus, compared to baseline) in sensorimotor regions were analyzed. The single-subject analysis showed variability in ERSP patterns among all participants, including power suppression in sensorimotor mu and beta rhythms. One participant showed stronger responses to "robot" AO conditions than to "human" conditions. Strong and positive correlations in ERSP across all conditions were observed for almost all participants and channels, implying common cognitive processes or neural networks at play in the mirror neuron system during AO. The results support the feasibility of using EEG to explore differences in neural responses to observation of robot- and human-induced actions.
动作观察（AO）疗法是一种很有前景的康复治疗方法，适用于从诸如中风等神经系统疾病中恢复的个体的运动和语言功能。这项初步研究旨在探讨人形机器人在康复环境中支持AO疗法的潜力。在三名健康的右利手参与者观察由一名人类演员和一个机器人使用其左臂和右臂执行的八种不同动作时，通过脑电图（EEG）监测他们的大脑活动。分析了他们在感觉运动区域的事件相关频谱扰动（ERSPs，即与基线相比，神经振荡频谱功率对事件或刺激的响应变化）。单受试者分析显示所有参与者的ERSP模式存在差异，包括感觉运动μ和β节律的功率抑制。一名参与者对“机器人”AO条件的反应比对“人类”条件的反应更强。几乎所有参与者和通道在所有条件下的ERSP中都观察到了强且正的相关性，这意味着在AO期间镜像神经元系统中存在共同的认知过程或神经网络。结果支持了使用EEG探索对观察机器人和人类引发动作的神经反应差异的可行性。
