Neuropsychological technologies in rehabilitation

Objective: To provide an introduction and a conceptual context for the articles presented in this special edition of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation on neuropsychological technologies. Summary: Many clinical assessments in neuropsychology are metamorphosing from a psychometric search for a lesion to a functional image of the working brain. Behavioral probes increasingly employ technology to provide more ecologically valid stimuli to elicit diagnostically relevant responses. Intervention strategies include an expanding range of assistive devices and technologically based treatments. The advent of the microprocessor and discipline specific programming have allowed certain aspects of rehabilitation practice to incorporate these new assessment and intervention strategies. For example, the development of neuropsychological technologies has already lead to computer based prosthetics and orthotics, cognitive probes with millisecond accurate links to functional imaging, virtual reality managed ecological assessments, cognitive retraining, assistive devices, and online, and "real-time" database-driven evaluations. Emerging technologies offer the potential for personal, portable, everyday brain imaging and rehabilitation systems. Few psychologists, physiatrists, or allied health professionals are formally trained in technological development. What has emerged thus far is a collection of individual efforts that remain to be integrated into more comprehensive tools for the rehabilitation professions. The selective history of neuropsychological technologies presented here is meant to illustrate past difficulties in the emergence of this sub-specialty and point to new applications and technological integration that may prove fruitful. The convergence of neuroengineering, adaptive assessments, everyday neuroimaging, neuroinformatics, and educational neuroimaging, presage such future developments in neuropsychological technologies.