Providing Skin Stretch On The Lower Back - Design And Psychophysical Evaluation With A Stepping Task.

Haptic devices are becoming popular in many applications, including medical, gaming, and consumer devices. Yet, the majority of studies focus on the use of haptics for the upper limbs, with much less attention to the stimulation of other regions of the body such as the lower back. In this study, we designed three types of skin stretch stimulation devices that can be placed on a belt and apply tactile stimulation on the lower back. We present these devices that apply lateral, longitudinal, and rotational skin stretch stimulation on the lower back, and evaluate their effectiveness in providing haptic commands for the lower limbs of healthy participants. We designed psychophysical experiments that quantify the discrimination accuracy of participants with a stepping task. The results demonstrate the ability of participants to discriminate two out of three features of stimulation provided on the lower back. These results demonstrate that skin stretch on the lower back can effectively transmit haptic signals and elicit responses in the lower limb for various applications. Future studies are needed to optimize providing skin stretch on the lower back to benefit various applications such as training, rehabilitation, gaming, and assistive devices.

Integrating Tactile Feedback Technologies Into Home-Based Telerehabilitation: Opportunities and Challenges in Light of COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for advancing the development and implementation of novel means for home-based telerehabilitation in order to enable remote assessment and training for individuals with disabling conditions in need of therapy. While somatosensory input is essential for motor function, to date, most telerehabilitation therapies and technologies focus on assessing and training motor impairments, while the somatosensorial aspect is largely neglected. The integration of tactile devices into home-based rehabilitation practice has the potential to enhance the recovery of sensorimotor impairments and to promote functional gains through practice in an enriched environment with augmented tactile feedback and haptic interactions. In the current review, we outline the clinical approaches for stimulating somatosensation in home-based telerehabilitation and review the existing technologies for conveying mechanical tactile feedback (i.e., vibration, stretch, pressure, and mid-air stimulations). We focus on tactile feedback technologies that can be integrated into home-based practice due to their relatively low cost, compact size, and lightweight. The advantages and opportunities, as well as the long-term challenges and gaps with regards to implementing these technologies into home-based telerehabilitation, are discussed.

The effect of tactile augmentation on manipulation and grip force control during force-field adaptation.

BACKGROUND: When exposed to a novel dynamic perturbation, participants adapt by changing their movements' dynamics. This adaptation is achieved by constructing an internal representation of the perturbation, which allows for applying forces that compensate for the novel external conditions. To form an internal representation, the sensorimotor system gathers and integrates sensory inputs, including kinesthetic and tactile information about the external load. The relative contribution of the kinesthetic and tactile information in force-field adaptation is poorly understood. METHODS: In this study, we set out to establish the effect of augmented tactile information on adaptation to force-field. Two groups of participants received a velocity-dependent tangential skin deformation from a custom-built skin-stretch device together with a velocity-dependent force-field from a kinesthetic haptic device. One group experienced a skin deformation in the same direction of the force, and the other in the opposite direction. A third group received only the velocity-dependent force-field. RESULTS: We found that adding a skin deformation did not affect the kinematics of the movement during adaptation. However, participants who received skin deformation in the opposite direction adapted their manipulation forces faster and to a greater extent than those who received skin deformation in the same direction of the force. In addition, we found that skin deformation in the same direction to the force-field caused an increase in the applied grip-force per amount of load force, both in response and in anticipation of the stretch, compared to the other two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Augmented tactile information affects the internal representations for the control of manipulation and grip forces, and these internal representations are likely updated via distinct mechanisms. We discuss the implications of these results for assistive and rehabilitation devices.

Adaptation to Laterally Asymmetrical Visuomotor Delay Has an Effect on Action But Not on Perception.

When interacting with the environment, the sensorimotor system faces temporal and spatial discrepancies between sensory inputs, such as delay in sensory information transmission, and asymmetrical visual inputs across space. These discrepancies can affect motor control and the representation of space. We recently showed that adaptation to a laterally asymmetric delay in the visual feedback induces neglect-like effects in blind drawing movements, expressed by asymmetrical elongation of circles that are drawn in different workspaces and directions; this establishes a possible connection between delayed feedback and asymmetrical spatial processing in the control of action. In the current study, we investigate whether such adaptation also influences visual perception. In addition, we examined transfer to another motor task - a line bisection task that is commonly used to detect spatial disorders, and extend these results to examine the mapping of these neglect-like effects. We performed two sets of experiments in which participants executed lateral reaching movements, and were exposed to visual feedback delay only in the left workspace. We examined transfer of adaptation to a perceptual line bisection task - answers about the perceived midline of lines that were presented in different directions and workspaces, and to a blind motor line bisection task - reaching movements toward the centers of similar lines. We found that the adaptation to the asymmetrical delay transferred to the control of lateral movements, but did not affect the perceived location of the midlines. Our results clarify the effect of asymmetrical delayed visual feedback on perception and action, and provide potential insights on the link between visuomotor delay and neurological disorders such as the hemispatial neglect syndrome.

Neglect-Like Effects on Drawing Symmetry Induced by Adaptation to a Laterally Asymmetric Visuomotor Delay.

In daily interactions, our sensorimotor system accounts for spatial and temporal discrepancies between the senses. Functional lateralization between hemispheres causes differences in attention and in the control of action across the left and right workspaces. In addition, differences in transmission delays between modalities affect movement control and internal representations. Studies on motor impairments such as hemispatial neglect syndrome suggested a link between lateral spatial biases and temporal processing. To understand this link, we computationally modeled and experimentally validated the effect of laterally asymmetric delay in visual feedback on motor learning and its transfer to the control of drawing movements without visual feedback. In the behavioral experiments, we asked healthy participants to perform lateral reaching movements while adapting to delayed visual feedback in either left, right, or both workspaces. We found that the adaptation transferred to blind drawing and caused movement elongation, which is consistent with a state representation of the delay. However, the pattern of the spatial effect varied between conditions: whereas adaptation to delay in only the left workspace or in the whole workspace caused selective leftward elongation, adaptation to delay in only the right workspace caused drawing elongation in both directions. We simulated arm movements according to different models of perceptual and motor spatial asymmetry in the representation of delay and found that the best model that accounts for our results combines both perceptual and motor asymmetry between the hemispheres. These results provide direct evidence for an asymmetrical processing of delayed visual feedback that is associated with both perceptual and motor biases that are similar to those observed in hemispatial neglect syndrome.