Applications of EEG in Neural Rehabilitation: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The editors are grateful to the researchers who contributed to the success of the first volume of this issue (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/special_issues/EEG_Neural). We are very pleased to announce the second volume of our Special Issue “Applications of EEG in Neural Rehabilitation".

Neurorehabilitation is a type of therapy designed for the recovery of brain-functional alterations or disabilities that are consequences of a neurological disorder or an acute insult to the nervous system. In some cases, this process may not in fact produce recovery but the compensation of lost functionalities and a reduction in the associated symptoms, which positively impact the improvement of the person’s quality of life.

Electroencephalography (EEG), as a functional measurement of the brain, is affordable and non-invasive and has a high temporal resolution. It has been widely used both as a therapeutic technique for rehabilitation and as a tool for the assessment of the results of the rehabilitation process. As a rehabilitation tool, EEG's high temporal resolution makes it very well suited for measurement, able to provide near-real-time feedback to the damaged brain to stimulate neural-rehabilitation processes and neuroplastic mechanisms. Recently, several new methodologies to support neuro-rehabilitative technologies such as brain–computer interfaces (BCI) have been developed.

EEG-based approaches go from measuring the activation of brain regions, or connectivity between brain areas, using both scalp measurements and the distribution of primary sources at the cortex through inverse solution methods. Connectivity methods include coherence, causality, phase-lag indexes, or effective connectivity at the sources. Methods have been developed in either the time or the frequency domains. As anticipated, neurofeedback is also a widely used technique for this purpose. Other methods use a combination of EEG with electromyographical (EMG) signals to determine the appropriate time for providing adequate feedback to the brain (e.g., exoskeletons, BCI for motor rehabilitation). EEG-based virtual reality games are also employed as neuro-rehabilitation tools. Many algorithms have been developed to extract EEG-based synthetic indices associated with mood disorders such as depression, emotions such as sadness and happiness, and mental states such as alertness, workload, and others. Such markers can be used as feedback to enhance the therapeutic process. In recent years, the use of the hyper-scanning techniques (i.e., the simultaneous recording of the EEG activity from two or more interactive persons) has been proposed as a model providing insights into the neural dynamics underlying clinical interactions allowing for the optimization of rehabilitation strategies.

In this issue, we invite original and review research highlighting the brain mechanisms activated by EEG-based neurorehabilitation treatments, as well as ways of objectively measuring their efficacy. We also welcome papers on the future of neurorehabilitation, perspectives, strengths, new methodologies, and more efficient mechanisms for providing feedback to the brain. We encourage papers using EEG to develop methodologies for the assessment of the effectiveness of intervention processes. Review papers that analyze and summarize the state of the art in the field, giving an integrated vision of different approaches, analyzing reproducibility of the results, and comparing methodologies contributing to shedding light on the brain mechanisms behind neurorehabilitation processes are also very well received.

Dr. Jorge Bosch-Bayard
Dr. Alessandra Anzolin
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Augusto Chiarenza
Dr. Rubén Pérez-Elvira
Guest Editors

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• neurorehabilitation
• neuroplasticity
• EEG
• ERPs
• qEEG, EEG mediated patient-therapist interaction
• BCI
• exoskeleton
• cognitive rehabilitation
• brain rewiring