Brain-computer interface improves motor skills for stroke patient

Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of Adelaide used a brain-computer interface to improve motor function for a stroke patient.

The study, published today in Royal Society Open Science, showed how the brain-computer interface resulted in a 36 percent improvement in motor function of a stroke-damaged hand.

"In the majority of strokes, the area of the brain that sends motor commands to the muscles becomes partly damaged and thereby degrades motor functions of the affected parts," Dr. Sam Darvishi, of the University of Adelaide's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said in a news release.

"During the early phases of motor learning (such as when we are toddlers) our brain and body learn how to work in harmony when the brain commands the target muscles and then receives feedback via seeing and feeling each body movement. After a stroke the brain needs to re-train the lost skills."

Researchers designed the specific brain-computer interface to measure the brain's electrical signal on the surface of the scalp. Each time a patient imagines performing a specific motor task, the interface measures those electrical signals and transmits them to a computer.

"BCIs have been proposed as an alternate therapy for stroke patients. They have shown some level of promise but, to date, haven't been particularly effective," Darvishi said.

"Our theory is that to achieve clinical results with BCIs we need to have the right feedback to the brain at the right time; we need to provide the same feedback that we receive during natural motor learning, when we are seeing and feeling the body's movement. We also found there should be a short delay between the brain activation and the activation of target muscles."

The study showed that in a single case study of one patient, the BCI allowed them to achieve a 36 percent improvement in hand motor function in 10 training sessions of 30 minutes each.

"This was only a single patient so we can't generalize the outcome to a whole stroke population," Darvishi said. "However it certainly shows enough promise for a larger study of stroke patients to see if this could be a feasible therapy for stroke rehabilitation.This would be a major step towards helping stroke patients recover from debilitating damage."