Functional near-infrared frontal cortex imaging for virtual reality neuro-rehabilitation assessment

Virtual reality-based technologies have great potential for the development of novel paradigms useful for functional neuro-rehabilitation. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an optical brain imaging technique that measures blood oxygenation changes related to brain functions in the cerebral cortex. The present study was aimed at assessing by fNIRS the frontopolar cortex oxygenation response to a balance task in a semi-immersive virtual envi-ronment monitored by a depth-sensing camera. An eight-channel fNIRS system was used to measure changes in oxy-hemoglobin (O2Hb) and deoxy-hemoglobin (HHb) over the frontopolar cortex area. A significant progressive increase of O2Hb (p<0.001) and a significant progressive decrease of HHb (p<0.001) was found over the frontopolar cortex dur-ing the incremental balance task. These changes were modulated by the task difficulty suggesting that the frontopolar cortex is involved in attention-demanding tasks. These results suggest that virtual reality approach could be employed in the neuro-rehabilitation field.