EEG Analysis of the Contribution of Music Therapy and Virtual Reality to the Improvement of Cognition in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting nearly 9.9 million new people every year. The disease provokes important memory and cognitive impairment, eventually causing individuals to forget their loved ones and rendering them completely dependent on their caretakers. Alzheimer’s patients typically experience more negative emotions, such as frustration and apathy, than healthy older adults. There is currently no cure for the disease. Our research group explores how the integration of virtual reality (VR) and an EEG-based intelligent agent in music therapy can alleviate psychological and cognitive symptoms of the disease. We propose a theory explaining how, through activation of the brain reward system, music can reduce negative emotions, increase positive emotions and as a result increase performance on cognitive tasks. The results of our experimental study concord with our theory: emotional states of participants are improved, as per recorded through EEG, and performances on memory tasks show improvement following the intervention. We believe that the combination of EEG brain assessment, VR and music therapy is a promising method for emotional states and cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Optimizing Alzheimer’s Disease Therapy Using a Neural Intelligent Agent-Based Platform

Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of persons every year. Negative emotions such as stress and frustration have a negative impact on memory function and Alzheimer's patients experience more negative emotions than healthy adults. Non-pharmacological treatment such as immersion in virtual environments could help Alzheimer patients by reducing their negative emotions, but it has restrictions and requirements. In this work, we present three virtual reality relaxing systems in which the patients are immersed in relaxing environments. We propose to use intelligent agents in order to adapt the relaxing environment to each participant and optimize its relaxation effect. The intelligent agents track the emotions of patients using electroencephalography as input in order to adapt the environments. We designed each system with different levels of intelligence in order to analyze the impact of the adaptation on the patients. Experiments were performed for each system on participants with subjective cognitive decline. Results show that these relaxing systems can reduce negative emotions and improve participants’ memory performance. The positive effects on affective state and memory persisted for a longer period of time and were generally more effective for the systems with more intelligence. We believe that the combination of a relaxing environment, virtual reality, intelligent agents for adapting the environment, and brain assessment is a promising method for helping Alzheimer’s patients.

Brain motor control assessment post intensive whole-body exercise vs. upper body exercise after spinal cord injury

Aim:The aim of this study was to assess the pattern of voluntary movements in patients with spinal cord injury(SCI)post intensive whole-body training vs.upper body training with brain motor control assessment(BMCA).Methods:Twelve neurologically intact participants and 18 patients with SCI participated in this study as part of a multi-centre randomised controlled trial.All participants received 12 weeks training(three times per week),which comprised trunk,upper and lower limb exercises and locomotor training and functional electrical stimulation-assisted cycling in whole-body training group and an upper body strength and fitness program for upper body training group.Results:Generalised linear model analysis showed significant effect of the main effect of the Task(P<0.001)on the similarity index of voluntary movement patterns but not on the other factors or the interactions between them(P>0.05).Some participants showed significant improvement in muscle strength post 12 weeks training;however,this improvement was not reflected in the pattern of muscle activation which was captured by BMCA.Conclusion:BMCA is a valuable objective assessment tool that could add resolution to the clinical evaluation of patients with SCI post different therapeutic techniques.