BCI Assisted Motor Function Improvement and Recovery in Children with Cerebral Palsy

The paper reports the results of BCI-controlled exoskeleton trials for 88 children and adolescents diagnosed with cerebral palsy and having unilateral paresis or hemiplegia. Significant improvement of motor function according to ARAT Fugl-Meyer, Jebsen-Taylor, and Box and Blocks test were observed, as well as increase in muscle force according to MRCSS. BCI performance indices show that the patients with cerebral palsy were capable of controlling the exoskeleton with accuracy comparable to post-stroke patients. Further analysis indicates that higher gain of the clinical scales is associated with higher F-scores for paretic hand and lower F-scores for intact hand movement imagery classification.