慢性腰痛（cLBP）是全球重要的公共卫生问题，预期姿势调节(APAs)障碍是导致反复腰痛的原因之一，但目前cLBP患者APAs障碍的临床疗效欠佳，这提示APAs障碍存在未知的中枢机制。我们发表的脑电研究表明准备期的注意定向和运动计划过程可调节运动预期的行为学表现。预实验结果显示，cLBP患者APAs能力下降与准备期额顶皮层的注意定向和感觉运动皮层的运动计划过程改变有关；虚拟现实(VR）训练可能作用于额顶网络和感觉运动网络，来提高cLBP患者APAs功能和减轻疼痛。据此推测：VR训练可通过加强额顶和感觉运动网络的功能连接，改善准备期的神经加工过程，从而提高cLBP患者的APAs能力及改善临床症状。本项目拟采用VR、脑电、静息态功能磁共振成像和表面肌电技术探讨cLBP患者APAs障碍的中枢机制；阐明VR训练对cLBP患者APAs障碍的有效性及其中枢机制，为cLBP患者的康复新技术提供理论依据。

Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is a global public health problem. The dysfunction of anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) is one of the major reasons for recurrent low back pain. However, the clinical effectiveness of the interventions for the APAs dysfunction of cLBP patients is unsatisfactory, which suggests that the underlying neural mechanism for APAs dysfunction remains unclear. The findings of our published event related potential (ERP) study suggested that the neural processes, including attention orienting and motor preparation during motor preparation period, could modulate the behavioral performance of motor anticipation. Our pilot study showed that cLBP patients had altered central neural processes including attention orienting in the frontoparietal cortex and motor preparation in sensorimotor cortex during the preparation period, which were related to the poor APAs performance. Further neural imaging pilot study with fMRI found an increased in resting-state functional connectivity of the frontoparietal and sensorimotor networks in cLBP pateitns after receiving virtual reality (VR) intervention, which may be associated with higher APAs ability and the reduced back pain of cLBP patients. Therefore, we hypothesized that VR training could enhance the resting-state functional connectivity of the frontoparietal and sensorimotor networks to improve the neural processes in the preparation period, which subsequently improve APAs ability and the clinical symptoms of cLBP patients. The first phase of the present study is to apply the techniques of ERP, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and surface electromyography (sEMG) to explore the neural mechanism for the APAs dysfunction of cLBP patients. This followed by applying VR intervention to explore the clinical effectiveness and the potential neural modulation mechanism of VR training on the APAs dysfunction of cLBP patients. The findings of the present study would provide a theoretical basis for a novel rehabilitation approach for cLBP patients.