Multipurpose Virtual Reality Environment for Biomedical and Health Applications

Abstract

Virtual reality is a trending, widely accessible, contemporary technology of increasing utility to biomedical and health applications. However, most implementations of VR environments are tailored to specific applications. We describe the complete development of a novel, open-source virtual reality environment that is suitable for multipurpose biomedical and healthcare applications. The developed environment simulates an immersive (first-person perspective) run in the countryside, in a virtual landscape with various salient features. The utility of the developed VR environment has been validated via two test usage cases: an application in the context of motor rehabilitation following injury of the lower limbs and an application in the context of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback, to regulate brain function in specific regions of interest. The resulting test applications suggest that the implemented approach is robust, versatile and efficient. Both applications are publicly available via a GitHub repository, in support of the Open Science initiative. We anticipate our contribution to catalyze further progress and replicability with regards to the usage of virtual reality in biomedical and health applications.

The effect of APOE genotype and streamline density volume, on hippocampal CA1 down-regulation: a real-time fMRI virtual reality neurofeedback study

“…In previous studies of healthy young adults, rt-fMRI NF performance correlated with down-regulation, but not up-regulation, of the parahippocampal formation [14]. Moreover, learning to up-regulate the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with higher improvement of working memory, across two sessions [15].…”

Distinct effects of amyloid and tau deposition on eigenvector centrality during hippocampal down-regulation: a real-time fMRI virtual reality closed-loop neurofeedback study with CSF biomarkers

“…The VR environment and real-time computations have been described in detail elsewhere (Torner et al, 2018). Briefly, the VR environment had been developed in the game-engine Unity (Unity Technologies ApS, San Francisco, CA, US) ( Fig.…”

“…1). Real-time image preprocessing consisted of rigid-body registration to a reference volume from the same scanning session, temporal high-pass filtering at a cut-off frequency of 1/200 Hz (Tarvainen et al, 2002), as well as voxel efficiency weighting (Stoeckel et al, 2014) via voxel-wise normalization within the 90-second sliding time-window (for extensive details please refer to Torner et al, 2018).…”

The Use of Portable EEG Devices in Development of Immersive Virtual Reality Environments for Converting Emotional States into Specific Commands

“…Brain activity studies obtained by the application of electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes have allowed users to relate cognitive, emotional, and social functions with the exposure to certain stimuli. The portability and mobility that current VR devices allow are incompatible with traditional EEG equipment, require user immobilization and a panoply of wires and equipment that limit their use and interfere with the user experience [7][8][9].…”