Abstract:
The personal impact of spinal cord injury (SCI) is
substantial. For example, persons with SCI have been
shown to be at risk of negative life indicators such as
depression and anxiety. This suggests the need for
effective strategies that ean lower risks and raise quality
of life. One method is through reducing the level of
dependency or by enhancing their independence. This
can be achieved by employing technology that enhances
a person's capacity to control devices in their
environment. Recently. an assistive technology that
operates by detecting increases in brain activity during
eye closure has been successfully trialed. However, little
is known about the brain wave activity in people with
spinal cord injury (SCI) compared to brain wave activity
in able-bodied controls. Multi-channel EEG assessments
were performed in 20 persons with SCI and 20 ablebodied.
sex and age matched controls. The results
showed that compared to the able-bodied controls, SCI
consistently showed reduced brainwave activity in the 8-
13 Hz component of the EEG. The SCI group also had
consistently lower frequencies than the able-bodied
controls. Furthermore, the sub-group of SCI participants
with tetraplegia generally had significantly reduced brain
activity compared with the paraplegic sub-group and
able-bodied controls.
