Changes in brain activity of trainees during laparoscopic surgical virtual training assessed with electroencephalography.

OBJECTIVE:Evaluate changes in brain activity of trainees during laparoscopic surgical training from electroencephalographic (EEG) signals in an ecological scenario with few restrictions for the user. DESIGN:Longitudinal study with two follow-up measurements in the first and last session of a 4-week training with LapSim laparoscopic surgery simulator. Variables analyzed include EEG neuronal activations in theta and alpha bands, tasks performance measures, and subjective measures such as perception of mental workload. SETTING:Medical School, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. PARTICIPANTS:First-year surgical residents (n = 16, age = 28.0 ± 2.6 years old, right-handed, 9 females) RESULTS: Significant improvements in tasks performance were found together with changes in neuronal activity over frontal and parietal cortex. These changes were also correlated with task performance through training sessions. CONCLUSIONS:The use of neurophysiological measures such as electroencephalography combined with source separation techniques allows evaluating neural changes associated with motor training. The experiment proposed in this work establishes less controlled recording conditions leading to a more realistic analysis scenario to cognitive assessment in residents training.