Identification of brain activity sites in blind people during successful interpersonal collision avoidance by signal energization using maximum frequency coherence variation

Research Objectives: To identify the brain activity areas in blind and sighted subjects during a series of perception-recognition-action(SPRA) of information about approaching persons using a device that combines a sensor and a energized signal(ES) as an information device to prevent collisions with blind persons.

Design: The study design was an experimental intervention study and a randomized controlled trial.
The duration of the study is from August 2021 to December 2022.

Setting: The experiment was conducted in a field experimental setting in a general community setting.

Participants: Four congenitally blind, two acquired blind, and three normal subjects.Exclusion criteria were: treatment for neurological disease.

Interventions: The distance information detected by the ultrasonic sensor was connected to a low-frequency energizer connected to a computer. The signal interval of the energizer changed when a person was present. This normal operating condition was used as the intervention.　The placebo condition (always a microcurrent and only an energization that did not reflect the response of the sensor) was selected at random and assigned in a blinded fashion. The number of trials was 12.

Main Outcome Measures: Success-rate ( Judgement within 0.12-0.36 seconds), EEG (Emotiv Insight). The maximum frequency coherence at the time from the onset of attention to the stimulus signal to the cue of recognition completion in AF3, AF4, T7, T6, and Pz, Frequency coherence variation.

Results: The difference between blind and normal subjects in the area of brain activity during successful hazard avoidance in the SPRA by the ES was p< 0.05 (95%CI:0.78 to 283) for the maximum frequency coherence variation of AF3-4.
The success rates in the blinded group were 31.84%+-20 for the intervention group and 31.84%+-20 for the control group.　The maximum frequency coherence variability of alpha waves at the endpoint was 27.9+-57 for frontal alpha waves.

Conclusions: Based on the differences between blind and normal subjects, we showed that the frequency coherence of frontal alpha waves in blind subjects during successful risk avoidance may differ from that of normal subjects during eye closure, which was previously unknown.

Author(s) Disclosures: Nothing.