An MRI Compatible Visual Force-Feedback System for the Study of Force Control Mechanics

Motor task experiments play an essential role in exploring the brain mechanisms of movement control, and visual force-feedback is an important factor in these motor experiments. In this paper, the authors proposed a visual forcefeedback system suitable for neuroscience experiment. With this system, the force output produced by participants can be detected and recorded in real time, while force output was visually displayed as a feedback cue to the participants simultaneously. Furthermore, this force feedback system is MRI compatible, and can be used both in fMRI and ERP experiments. The proposed system has been applied in handgrip tasks and finger movement experiments, which were designed to explore the relationship between force output and brain activation mode in normal subject and stroke patient. The results demonstrated that various force levels were well detected and visual feedback signals enabled the accomplishment of experiments with both fixed and variable target force levels.