Game rehabilitation
Games developed in Russia will help you recover after a stroke
A computer toy monitors brain activity during imaginary movements during a game action, which facilitates training and rehabilitation of people with impaired motor functions as a result of a stroke. The press release of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU), received by the editorial office of "Attic", tells about the project.
A violation of the blood supply to the brain leads to a stroke and the appearance of lesions of the nervous tissue. As a rule, they affect only certain areas in one or another hemisphere. Therefore, motor functions that are impaired, for example, on the right side of the body, can remain normal on the left. And with a favorable development of events, the plasticity of the brain will allow the whole hemisphere to take over the performance of lost functions. This process is significantly stimulated by exercises, and not necessarily real ones.
The movement performed mentally excites in many ways the same neural patterns as the actual one. This allows you to speed up the recovery of patients after a stroke without physically overloading them with the help of gaming technologies. This approach is being developed by scientists of St. Petersburg SPbPU together with the innovative startup iBrain.
With the help of a wireless electroencephalograph (EEG), the activity of various parts of the motor cortex is detected during certain movements of the body. This data is used to train a system with elements of artificial intelligence, which then interprets the patient's EEG during the game, without making real movements. Bypassing the virtual garden, the patient collects virtual fruits and, getting carried away, additionally trains the neural patterns necessary to restore the body's motor skills.
You can watch the video here – VM.
According to the developers, you can use the system at home, and the rehabilitation period takes about two months. In the near future, it will be supplemented by another version of the game, with shooting at virtual targets, and subsequently the set of games will be expanded – so that everyone can find an option to their liking and restore brain functions damaged by a stroke faster.
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