Motor imagery in robot-assistive rehabilitation: A study with healthy subjects

Robots have been extensively used to study the adaptive properties of the human motor system. If robots are used in conjunction with techniques for functional brain imaging, in principle the motor learning can be facilitated for rehabilitation purposes. A technique that speeds up the learning process would find immediate application in fields like motor skill acquisition in normal subjects and maximization of motor recovery in stroke patients. In this study, we use motor imagery based real-time EEG recording as a bio-feedback technique to improve the learning rate in a robot-based adaptation task. The results suggest that, the motor learning can be influenced by mental practice and could be used to increase the rate of adaptation.