Sensory Conflict Neuro-Rehabilitation
Keywords: Sensory conflict, virtual environment, computer vision, haptics, stroke rehabilitation.
Overview of Research
Each year, about 50,000 Canadians suffer from a stroke and 75% of them are left with a post-stroke disability or impairment. Such patients often suffer from partial paralysis due to brain tissue damage during the stroke. It has been shown that training exercises that provide patients with visual feedback on the movement of the affected limbs facilitate rehabilitation. The recovery is attributed to brain plasticity and allocation of new neuronal resources to motor control. The proposed project applies advanced computer vision, robotics/haptics, and computer graphics techniques to develop a neurorehabilitation system for helping stroke patients regain their mobility. The system will induce ownership over a computer animated body part and will provide positive visual feedback to retrain the neural system. The technology will help stroke patients in Ontario and around the world and industrial partners involved during the technology development phase will benefit from its commercialization.
Research Team
Babak Taati, Ph.D. (University of Toronto)
Jenny Campos, Ph.D. (TRI)
Alex Mihailidis, Ph.D., P.Eng. (Univeristy of Toronto / TRI)
Mona Gridseth (University of Toronto)
