An Immersive Virtual Reality Platform Integrating Human ECOG & sEEG: Implementation & Noise Analysis

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Medical Technology

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) provides advanced control for behavioral neuroscience experiments.
• Non-invasive methods like EEG and fMRI are used with VR for neural correlates.
• Integrating VR with invasive neural recordings (ECoG, sEEG) promises higher resolution and neurofeedback.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report the first implementation of a VR platform with implanted electrocorticography (ECoG) and stereo-electroencephalography (sEEG) in human in-patients.
• To assess the impact of VR headset use on neural data quality in invasive recordings.
• To evaluate noise characteristics in neural signals during VR immersion.

Main Methods:

• Developed and implemented a VR system for in-patient use with subjects undergoing invasive neural recording.
• Conducted noise analyses on electrocorticography (ECoG) and stereo-electroencephalography (sEEG) data.
• Tested VR system with two VR-naive in-patient subjects (one child, one adult) with implanted electrodes.

Main Results:

• A slight increase in line noise power (57-63Hz) was observed when wearing the VR headset.
• Common average referencing (CAR) effectively mitigated the observed line noise.
• No significant changes in the noise floor bandpower (125-240Hz) were detected.

Conclusions:

• This study demonstrates the feasibility of using VR with invasive neural recording in human in-patients.
• VR immersion was well-tolerated by subjects, and clinical neural signal quality was preserved.
• This integration enables future research in human behavioral neuroscience with enhanced neural data resolution.