A robot hand testbed designed for enhancing embodiment and functional neurorehabilitation of body schema in subjects with upper limb impairment or loss.

ABSTRACT: Many upper limb amputees experience an incessant, post-amputation "phantom limb pain" and report that their missing limbs feel paralyzed in an uncomfortable posture. One hypothesis is that efferent commands no longer generate expected afferent signals, such as proprioceptive feedback from changes in limb configuration, and that the mismatch of motor commands and visual feedback is interpreted as pain. Non-invasive therapeutic techniques for treating phantom limb pain, such as mirror visual feedback (MVF), rely on visualizations of postural changes. Advances in neural interfaces for artificial sensory feedback now make it possible to combine MVF with a high-tech "rubber hand" illusion, in which subjects develop a sense of embodiment with a fake hand when subjected to congruent visual and so

SUBMITTER: Hellman RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4333840 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature