BioTechniques - And the Grammy for best lab song goes to...

BioTechniques - And the Grammy for best lab song goes to...

RobotAppStore - Infographics on Robot Apps

RobotAppStore - Infographics on Robot Apps

Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen

Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen

Reading List

The Elegance of the Hedgehog (French: L'élégance du hérisson) is a novel by the French novelist and professor of philosophy Muriel Barbery.
It's wonderful.

IASTED 2010

Virtual Environment Sensorimotor Hand Dexterity Training System

IASTED 2010
K.G. August (Switzerland, UK, USA), M. Sellathurai (UK), D. Bleichenbacher,A. Skairek, G. Fluet, A. Merians, and S. Adamovich (USA)
Virtual Environments (VE) can be used to structure, organize, and control sensorimotor experiences (stimuli and feedback), activities, instructions (explicit or implicit), dialogues including those embodied by Virtual Avatar Teachers for observation and imitation of others or by Personal Proxy, provide haptics and kinematic support, enable intensive repetitions and practice, and interactions with real or virtual objects in ways unachievable through conventional means. The Virtual Environment Sign Language Instruction System (VESLI), designed to provide sensorimotor hand dexterity training and performance measurement features, incorporates virtual reality exercises mapped to specific impairments underlying dysfunction of the hand and organized in levels of difficulty. One goal of the VESLI design is to provide hand dexterity training even when the patient is unable to move adequately enough to participate in traditional therapies. Ten control subjects practiced hand dexterity exercises with the VESLI system using a learning and memory protocol. When studying with natural hands, pictures helped in learning the gestures, and text definitions helped in recall. Meanwhile with virtual hands avatars, the picture descriptions resulted in better performance. Sensorimotor experience in VE might be capable of providing safe and appropriate task-based sensory stimulation and feedback to extend available and early therapies to those in need.

NEBEC

Virtual reality, robot, and object touch: Blended reality sensorimotor training experience

August, K.G.; Guidali, M.; Sellathurai, M.; Hepp-Reymond, M.; Adamovich, S.V.; Riener, R.;
Inst. of Neuroinf., Univ. & ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

This paper appears in: Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC), 2011 IEEE 37th Annual Northeast
Issue Date: 1-3 April 2011
On page(s): 1 - 2
Location: Troy, NY
ISSN: 2160-7001
Print ISBN: 978-1-61284-827-3
References Cited: 32
INSPEC Accession Number: 12030447
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/NEBC.2011.5778716
Date of Current Version: 27 May 2011

Abstract

Loss of body sensations often accompanies injuries to the central or peripheral nervous system and can lead to disintegration of body schema resulting in altered sensory dependent motor skills. Localizing external objects within peripersonal space plays an important role in the strategies of accurate human movement, towards targets and for obstacle avoidance. In our system, practicing viewing and finger-tip contact with real objects is enabled using Blended Reality: Virtual Reality, Robot Assistance, and Real Object Touch. Arm Location exercises accompany multi-sensory experience in the blended reality. Adding vision and touch, salient properties of three dimensional real objects, to the technology assisted training environment increases the number and realistic qualities of sensory modalities for integration to bolster performance of the trainee. A number of exercises have been developed and are being investigated to understand contributions of the multi-sensory experiences upon performance, and to identify appropriate protocols for therapy.

TePRA

A system for sensory motor rehabilitation of the upper limb with virtual reality, exoskeleton robot, and real objects

Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA), 2011 IEEE Conference on
Issue Date: 11-12 April 2011
On page(s): 54 - 63
Location: Woburn, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-61284-482-4
References Cited: 141
INSPEC Accession Number: 11963082
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TEPRA.2011.5753482
Date of Current Version: 21 April 2011

Abstract

Technology assisted therapy has the potential to transform rehabilitation options available, and to dramatically increase the reach of today's healthcare system. Yet challenges persist in rendering translational application designs that optimize the full potential of technology and create value for the patient and the therapist. In a step towards optimizing value of technologies for practical applications to support very weak patients who might otherwise be unable to participate in traditional therapies, an integrated sensory motor training station was designed and developed. Inspired by recent neuroscientific research findings the goal of the design was to provide concurrent first person perspective immersive action observation of both virtual and real elements for motor and sensory experience; the system incorporates a virtual limb proxy that can be personalized and actuated by the robot and that is accompanied by exercise practice in peripersonal space for a plasticity promoting experience for the hand and arm. The station uses virtual reality and real objects for visual sensory experience, real objects also provide tactile sensory experience, and an exoskeleton upper limb robot provides assistance to patients. For many patients, successful movement and movement intensity required in rehabilitation is not achievable without the robot assistance. The multi-sensory features of the system promote a top-down strategy for training the upper limb (hand and arm) complementing the robot training; the system is ideally targeted for weak patients and those with tactile or proprioception sensory loss and those who are known to benefit from multi-sensory experiences.