Compatibility Test on Lower-Extremity Motion and Sensory Simulator to fMRI

Takahiro Ikeda, Akira Matsushita, Kosaku Saotome, Yasuhisa Hasegawa, and Yoshiyuki Sankai

Keywords

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neural, Sensory Systems and Rehabilitation

Abstract

This paper describes a novel motion simulator for the lower extremities of human in high magnetic field. This motion simulator provides a wearer with physical supports to walk or physical constrains as well as floor reactive force on bot- toms of their feet during walking in a functional magnetic resonance imaging device (fMRI) room so that brain activ- ities could be simultaneously measured. An fMRI is one of the most powerful tools to measure activities in any part of brain but a device attached on a subject is limited because a posture of an upper body is fixed and the material used for the device should be nonmagnetic. This paper shows the compatibility of the motion simulator that consists of Mckibben-type pneumatic artificial muscles and nonmagnetic materials.

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