This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The primary goal of this project is to develop virtual environments (VEs) that include different levels of haptic sensory feedback and to evaluate the effectiveness of these applications for neurorehabilitation training. The tasks to be performed within these VEs will span a range of activities from everyday functional tasks to game-like activities designed to motivate specific motor action that is believed to underlie more functional behavior. The outcome of this work will be to create VE applications that will be evaluated for both the usability of the VE interface and display devices by patient populations following stroke and for the impact that training in these environments has on both motor performance and cortical reorganization. In Year 1, we propose to create three VE systems that expand on applications that we have currently in development that use three different types of haptic feedback devices. The haptic devices that we have available can be applied to a progressive set of training tasks from precise fine motor movements, fine and gross motor hand activities and gross reaching movements that involve full arm, shoulder and torso activity. The three systems and tasks are: 1. The PHANTOM (see Haptics Movie on CD) is a small, desk-grounded robot that permits simulation of single or two-fingertip contact with virtual objects through a thimble or stylus. 2. The CyberGrasp (see Haptics Movie on CD) is an exoskeletal device that fits over a 22 DOF CyberGIove, providing force feedback. 3. This application will use vibrating mechanisms on the palm of the hand to simulate contact/collision with moving objects in a series of game based environments designed to exercise gross arm, shoulder and torso movemen
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