Tommaso Maria Marvulli

Dr. Tommaso Maria Marvulli

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

4Years (2023-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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24 May 2023 in Sensors
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
VSVladimiro Suglia
Vladimiro Suglia
Antonio BrunettiAntonio Brunetti
Antonio Brunetti
GPGuido Pasquini
Guido Pasquini
MCMariapia Caputo
Mariapia Caputo
TMTommaso Maria Marvulli
Tommaso Maria Marvulli
Domenico BuongiornoDomenico Buongiorno
Domenico Buongiorno
The study of visuomotor adaptation (VMA) capabilities has been encompassed in various experimental protocols aimed at investigating human motor control strategies and/or cognitive functions. VMA-oriented frameworks can have clinical applications, primarily in the investigation and assessment of neuromotor impairments caused by conditions such as Parkinson’s disease or post-stroke, which affect the lives of tens of thousands of people worldwide. Therefore, they can enhance the understanding of the specific mechanisms of such neuromotor disorders, thus being a potential biomarker for recovery, with the aim of being integrated with conventional rehabilitative programs. Virtual Reality (VR) can be entailed in a framework targeting VMA since it allows the development of visual perturbations in a more customizable and realistic way. Moreover, as has been demonstrated in previous works, a serious game (SG) can further increase engagement thanks to the use of full-body embodied avatars. Most studies implementing VMA frameworks have focused on upper limb tasks and have utilized a cursor as visual feedback for the user. Hence, there is a paucity in the literature about VMA-oriented frameworks targeting locomotion tasks. In this article, the authors present the design, development, and testing of an SG-based framework that addresses VMA in a locomotion activity by controlling a full-body moving avatar in a custom VR environment. This workflow includes a set of metrics to quantitatively assess the participants’ performance. Thirteen healthy children were recruited to evaluate the framework. Several quantitative comparisons and analyses were run to validate the different types of introduced visuomotor perturbations and to evaluate the ability of the proposed metrics to describe the difficulty caused by such perturbations. During the experimental sessions, it emerged that the system is safe, easy to use, and practical in a clinical setting. Despite the limited sample size, which represents the main limitation of the study and can be compensated for with future recruitment, the authors claim the potential of this framework as a useful instrument for quantitatively assessing either motor or cognitive impairments. The proposed feature-based approach gives several objective parameters as additional biomarkers that can integrate the conventional clinical scores. Future studies might investigate the relation between the proposed biomarkers and the clinical scores for specific disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and cerebral palsy.

10 August 2023 in European Journal of Internal Medicine
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
Francesco SantoroFrancesco Santoro
Francesco Santoro
ACAnnalisa Casanova
Annalisa Casanova
SSSimona Simone
Simona Simone
CACarlo Alfieri
Carlo Alfieri
AFAdele Falcone
Adele Falcone
FPFrancesco Pesce
Francesco Pesce