OPINION
published: 03 April 2018
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2018.00088
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org 1 April 2018 | Volume 10 | Article 88
Edited by:
Yu-Guo Yu,
Fudan University, China
Reviewed by:
Yunfa Fu,
Kunming University of Science and
Technology, China
Jiahong Sun,
Sun Yat-sen University, China
*Correspondence:
Dong Wen
xjwd@ysu.edu.cn
Tzyy-Ping Jung
jungtp2013@gmail.com
Received: 25 January 2018
Accepted: 15 March 2018
Published: 03 April 2018
Citation:
Wen D, Lan X, Zhou Y, Li G, Hsu S-H
and Jung T-P (2018) The Study of
Evaluation and Rehabilitation of
Patients With Different Cognitive
Impairment Phases Based on Virtual
Reality and EEG.
Front. Aging Neurosci. 10:88.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2018.00088
The Study of Evaluation and
Rehabilitation of Patients With
Different Cognitive Impairment
Phases Based on Virtual Reality and
EEG
Dong Wen
1,2
*
, Xifa Lan
3
, Yanhong Zhou
4
, Guolin Li
4
, Sheng-Hsiou Hsu
5
and
Tzyy-Ping Jung
5
*
1
Department of Software Engineering, School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao,
China,
2
The Key Laboratory for Computer Virtual Technology and System Integration of Hebei Province, Yanshan University,
Qinhuangdao, China,
3
Department of Neurology, First Hospital of Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, China,
4
Department of
Computer Science and Technology, School of Mathematics and Information Science and Technology, Hebei Normal
University of Science and Technology, Qinhuangdao, China,
5
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of
California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
Keywords: evaluation, rehabilitation, patients with different cognitive impairment phases, virtual reality, EEG
INTRODUCTION
The evaluation and rehabilitation (EAR) of patients with different cognitive impairment phases
(PDCIP), including subjective cognitive decline (SCD) (
Jessen et al., 2014; Innes et al., 2016a,b,
2017), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (Weniger et al., 2011) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
(Serino et al., 2015), become a rapidly growing research field. Virtual reality (VR) has been reported
to re-activate and/or improve multiple cortical functions (Baumann et al., 2003; Lin et al., 2008;
Schedlbauer et al., 2014; Carrieri et al., 2016) and help optimize t he coding efficiency of the sensory
cortex (
Ansuini et al., 2006; Keller et al., 2012; Ravassard et al., 2013; Schindler and Bartels, 2 013;
Sofroniew et al., 2015). Therefore, many researchers have started applying the VR technology to
the EAR of PDCIP (Buss, 2009), including spatial memory (Allison et al., 2016), episodic memory
(Valladares-Rodriguez et al., 2017), activities of daily living (Seo et al., 2017), language (Montenegro
and Argyriou, 2017), executive function (Tost et al., 2014), short-term and working memory
(Burdea et al., 2013), attention (Kalová et al., 2005), movement and balance (McEwen et al., 2014),
and outdoor activities (Van Schaik et al., 2008). For EAR of PDCIP, the advantages of using VR over
conventional approaches, such as electroencephalogram (EEG), functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI), and neuropsychological tasks, have been reported (Tarnanas et al., 2014a ,b, 2015 a).
However, these studies did not record EEG during the course of evaluation and training within a
VR environment, nor took full advantages of the EEG recordings to objectively explore the brain
states of PDCIP in (near) real time, despite the combination of VR and EEG has been used in the
EAR of other diseases, including stroke (I Badia et al., 2013; Lechner et al., 2014; Vour vopoulos
and I Badia, 2016
), paraplegic (Donati et al., 2016), autism (Amaral et al., 2017), attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (Rohani and Puthusserypady, 2015) and so on. The neuroimaging research
for the EAR of PDCIP within a VR environment is still in its infancy, and more works need to be
done before conclusions can be confidently drawn.
This study will review the literature related to th e EAR of PDCIP from the perspectives of VR
and EEG, and discuss the potential advantages of t he combined use of VR and EEG. It is expected
that the analysis may provide useful suggestions t o the field of the EAR of PDCIP.