The Arrival of the Metaverse in Neurorehabilitation: Fact, Fake or Vision?

Abstract

The metaverse is a new technology thought to provide a deeper, persistent, immersive 3D experience combining multiple different virtual approaches in a full continuum of physical–digital interaction spaces. Different from virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), the metaverse has a service-oriented solid model with an emphasis on social and content dimensions. It has widely been demonstrated that motor or cognitive deficits can be more effectively treated using VR/AR tools, but there are several issues that limit the real potential of immersive technologies applied to neurological patients. In this scoping review, we propose future research directions for applying technologies extracted from the metaverse in clinical neurorehabilitation. The multisensorial properties of the metaverse will boost the embodied cognition experience, thus influencing the internal body representations as well as learning strategies. Moreover, the immersive social environment shared with other patients will contribute to recovering social and psychoemotional abilities. In addition to the many potential pros, we will also discuss the cons, providing readers with the available information to better understand the complexity and limitations of the metaverse, which could be considered the future of neurorehabilitation.

Effects of Virtual Reality Cognitive Training on Neuroplasticity: A Quasi-Randomized Clinical Trial in Patients with Stroke

“…Electrophysiological approaches, such as EEG, offer a high temporal resolution in the order of milliseconds and can serve as a set of biomarkers crucial for assessing cognitive changes observed during various activities and challenging conditions, including VR [23][24][25][26]. Studies on neurophysiological changes associated with VR neurorehabilitation are relatively new, with initial evidence from behavioral tasks in healthy individuals [27,28].…”

Virtual reality and motor imagery for early post-stroke rehabilitation

“…Bimanual basketball shooting is selected as the MI task to mimic a sport activity involving the upper limbs. Mentally performing a sport involving both hands may actively promote both hemispheres of the brain to be activated, maximising brain activity of the motor cortex, especially for non-experts [ 3 , 6 , 17 – 21 ]. An upper limb MI is chosen because a larger area of the motor cortex is activated to control upper limbs, thus has been shown to be more effective in motor function recovery than that of lower limbs [ 3 , 6 , 22 ].…”

“…Stroke patients have suffered brain damage, so movement instruction should be relatively straightforward and simulate physical movement as much as possible to make the MI task practical [ 6 , 9 , 23 – 27 ]. A sport exercise shown via video is used to induce a sense of embodiment and self-esteem from the stroke patients by attempting to trigger the neural pathways for motor processes through the patients’ imagination of performing a physical task that appears to be impossible [ 6 , 8 , 17 , 18 , 21 , 28 – 30 ]. The activation intensity distribution of the brain can be studied by power spectral density (PSD), band power and spectral entropy of the EEG data that have been preprocessed [ 8 , 31 – 33 ].…”

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Metaverse

“…The integration of blockchain and AI technologies in the metaverse ensures transparent transactions, excessive statistics security, and privacy. Blockchain and AI technology inside the Metaverse provide blessings that include dynamic clever contract audit, on-chain records analysis, misbehavior provenance, and energy-efficient transaction processing (Calabrò, et al 2022). These advancements in AI technology, mixed with the abilities of blockchain, create secure and efficient surroundings for transactions and information management within the Metaverse.…”