A neural analysis on motor imagery and passive movement using a haptic device

We investigated neural activity from electroencephalography (EEG) during the use of a haptic-based hand rehabilitation device. While healthy participants (right-handed) performed a series of hand supination/pronation tasks, EEG signals of the participants were measured and compared across different tasks such as motor imagery (MI task), passive movement without MI (P task), and passive movement with MI (PMI task). EEG analysis revealed that the alpha power of the contralateral (left) sensorimotor area decreased more than that of the ipsilateral (right) area for all the tasks (p <; 0.05). It also showed that decreases in the alpha power were significantly greater for the two tasks with MI than the P task (p <; 0.01). This implicates that rehabilitation therapy using MI involves greater neural activation compared to repetitive passive movements. Meanwhile the passive movement by the haptic-based device provides sensory feedback to drive brain reorganization and then improve motor function. The PMI task that merges neural activations and sensory feedback may bring more benefits to the patients with motor impairment than MI and P tasks.