Assessment of Cognition and Motor Control in Patients with Parkison’s Disease after Dual-Task Training by Electroencephalogram and Electromyogram Analyses

Forced exercise is demonstrated useful in functional improvement of motor control and central nervous system in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The forced exercise requires the guide by human or machine. Dual-task training also increases corticospinal excitation and brain plasticity. This integrated proposal incorporates the cognitive-motor dual-task protocols (proposal 2) into the virtual-reality (VR) cycling ergometer (proposal 3). The VR-based training can give a guide to patients and inspire them for continue training. Moreover, the cognitive paradigm can be presented by the VR so that patients can be attracted by the stimuli and more efficient than the traditional method. In addition, the corticomuscular coherence (CMC), corticocortical coupling (CCC), motor-related cortical potentials (MRCP), and event-related potentials (ERP) (proposal 1) can be used to assess the cognitive-motor functions during dual-task training, combining with the behavior responses from the VR (proposal 3) as a feedback to patients. This proposal (proposal 1) is aimed to develop cognitive-motor indexes based on the electroencephalogram (EEG), electromyogram (EMG) and data analysis. In the first year, an EEG- and EMG-based analysis system for cognitive and motor functions will be developed. The MRCP and CMC during cycling training will be investigated in healthy subjects. The ERPs at rest of healthy subjects and PD patients will be compared to understand their cognitive functions. In the second year, the MRCP, CMC, CCC, and ERP during dual-task training in healthy subjects will be investigated and compared with those during single-task training. The all-in-one system with wearable EEG and EMG devices will be developed to simplify our system. In third year, real-time data analysis algorithm and software will be developed in order to communicate with the dual-task VR platform (proposal 3). The PD patients will be included for the VR-based dual-task training (proposal 2). The cerebral cognitive and motor control functions (proposal 1) will be integrated with the motor indexes by transcranial magnetic stimulation (proposal 2) and the behavior performance from the VR (proposal 3) for investigating the brain plasticity of PD patients after dual-task VR training.

Project ID:PB10408-5746
External Project ID:MOST104-2221-E182-015