Exploring the Relationship between Behavioral and Neurological Impairments Due to Mild Cognitive Impairment: Correlation Study between Virtual Kiosk Test and EEG-SSVEP

Abstract

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a transitional stage between normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease, making early screening imperative for potential intervention and prevention of progression to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Therefore, there is a demand for research to identify effective and easy-to-use tools for aMCI screening. While behavioral tests in virtual reality environments have successfully captured behavioral features related to instrumental activities of daily living for aMCI screening, further investigations are necessary to establish connections between cognitive decline and neurological changes. Utilizing electroencephalography with steady-state visual evoked potentials, this study delved into the correlation between behavioral features recorded during virtual reality tests and neurological features obtained by measuring neural activity in the dorsal stream. As a result, this multimodal approach achieved an impressive screening accuracy of 98.38%.

Keywords

• virtual reality
• brain–computer interface
• human cognition
• instrumental activities of daily living
• steady-state visual evoked potentials