Design and Validation of a 3D VR-Assisted Motor Imagery System

This paper introduces a 3D virtual reality (VR)-assisted motor imagery (MI) system designed for stroke rehabilitation. The system provides immersive scenarios to support motor imagery for hand and upper limb movements, lower limb movements, and whole-body movements. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was utilized to assess cortical activation and functional connectivity (FC) during VR-assisted MI tasks performed by 10 healthy participants. The findings revealed significant differences in cortical activation and FC patterns across tasks, with certain inter-regional FC strengths notably enhanced during MI activities. It also found that lower limb motor imagery (LLMI) elicited the highest FC, particularly between LPFC-RPFC and LPFC-RMC regions. While this investigation focused on healthy participants, the results indicate that VR-assisted MI training has the potential to promote neural plasticity and could be beneficial for stroke rehabilitation.