Brain stimulation using an haptic thermal device

Haptic devices are normally used to enrich the user interface of a controlled system with an extra sensing feedback. These devices are especially important in education, in engineering, medical training and in industry, or in every situation where the direct contact with the system is not possible due to the distance, risk of infection, risk of explosion, etc. This paper introduces a novel approach - a thermal haptic device for brain stimulation -, to be used in cases of potential dementia, coma patients, or others that may benefit from other type of stimulus. The haptic device is based on a Peltier element inserted in a computer mouse and able to control the temperature of a small pad between 10 and 35.5 °C, Once connected to the computer, the device can be used to interact with the patient giving a thermal feedback to his/her actions. As a case study, it was developed an application where the haptic device is linked to the color information of a picture on the screen. By moving the mouse pointer over it, the pixel color information is converted in realtime into a temperature set-point to the haptic controller.