Brooke Dexheimer, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Health Professions Department of Occupational Therapy, has been awarded a grant from the 2024 VCU Quest Fund. 

The fund, administered by VCU’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, addresses major societal challenges through the support of transdisciplinary pilot and existing projects led by university researchers.

The project is titled “Altering Sensory Perception in Virtual Reality to Elicit Naturalistic Movements,” and is a collaboration between the departments of Occupational Therapy (Dr. Brooke Dexheimer, PI), Biomedical Engineering (Dr. Dean Krusienski, co-PI), and Physical Therapy (Dr. Pete Pidcoe, co-I).

The research team will test the effects of different optical and perceptual illusions on movement and motor learning in 3D virtual reality. By "tricking" the brain into reaching in new ways, the research team hopes these forms of technology have implications for learning new motor skills, such as sports performance, or relearning movement after injury, such as stroke rehabilitation. 

Read more about the 2024 VCU Quest Fund recipients on VCU News.