The role of perceptual manipulations of XR in neurological rehabilitation

In recent years, advances in extended reality (XR) have helped to influence and manipulate human perception. Perceptual manipulation arises from the ability of XR to enhance and stimulate the user's senses (i.e., visual, tactile, auditory, vestibular, and proprioceptive). As XR technological advances improved over time, these allowed XR developers to manipulate perceptions of end-user experiences by creating real-world sensations in a virtual world. However, opportunities for object manipulation and body movement through virtual space provide frameworks that, in varying degrees, are perceived as comparable to similar opportunities in the real world.



Through manipulations in the XR, we can manipulate individual sources of sensory information, which are physiologically bound together. This makes it possible to study the contribution of these individual sensory inputs and multisensory integration to self-perception and motor control. This sensory manipulation takes advantage of the capabilities of XR to induce activation through observation and to perturb the reality in order to target specific neural networks, particularly those neural networks associated with sensorimotor learning thus, promises the effective potential for rehabilitation training; e.g., to alleviate phantom limb pain or improve upper limb function. Treatment effects are usually the direct result of a mismatch between false visual feedback and other sensory feedback. However, it is important to understand the neural mechanism underlying these innovative rehabilitation strategies. Little is understood about the susceptibility of brain function to various sensory manipulations within the VE. It is critical to determine the underlying neurological mechanisms of moving and interacting within a VE and to consider how they may be exploited to facilitate activation in neural networks associated with sensorimotor learning.



This Research Topic offers the opportunity to examine the use of perceptual manipulations in extended reality (VR/AR/MR) for the further understanding and treatment of neurological disorders.



- Objective or subjective measures of visual, tactile, auditory, vestibular, or proprioceptive perception

- Neuroscience methodologies used to understand perceptual manipulations

- Investigations of perception using psychophysical, behavioral, or physiological measures

- The use of XR to examine perceptual manipulations in rehabilitative concepts

- Testing changes in sensory perception over extended periods of immersion

- Comparisons of perception in XR to the real world using behavioral or physiological measures



The following Article Types are encouraged: Original Research, Review, Brief Research Report, Mini Review, and Perspective.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Augmented reality, perceptual manipulations, perceptual illusions, therapy, rehabilitation

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