The Movement-Related Cortical Activities under the Virtual Environment with Force Feedback

Virtual reality (VR) is widely used in the fields of health care. We hypothesis that hand movement with VR simulated scene is similar to actual activity. Nine subjects participated in the study with brain wave monitoring, they used force feedback device to virtual ball catching. We found the brain wave patterns are similar to prior hand movement study, but pattern in the force feedback had longer latency than none force feedback. The results supported virtual reality paradigm can be the part of activity in the real world. We conclude that, movement in the virtual environment and real world had slight difference. Virtual reality can be used as a tool for the motor learning or skill re-acquisition.