BackgroundMotor impairment is a common consequence of stroke causing difficulty in independent movement. The first month of post-stroke rehabilitation is the most effective period for recovery. Movement imagination, known as motor imagery, in combination with virtual reality may provide a way for stroke patients with severe motor disabilities to begin rehabilitation.MethodsThe aim of this study is to verify whether motor imagery and virtual reality help to activate stroke patients’ motor cortex. 16 acute/subacute (< 6 months) stroke patients participated in this study. All participants performed motor imagery of basketball shooting which involved the following tasks: listening to audio instruction only, watching a basketball shooting animation in 3D with audio, and also performing motor imagery afterwards. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded for analysis of motor-related features of the brain such as power spectral analysis in the\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\beta$$\end{document}βfrequency bands and spectral entropy. 18 EEG channels over the motor cortex were used for all stroke patients.ResultsAll results are normalised relative to all tasks for each participant. The power spectral densities peak near the\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\alpha$$\end{document}αband for all participants and also the\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\beta$$\end{document}βband for some participants. Tasks with instructions during motor imagery generally show greater power spectral peaks. Thep-values of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test for band power comparison from the 18 EEG channels between different pairs of tasks show a 0.01 significance of rejecting the band powers being the same for most tasks done by stroke subjects. The motor cortex of most stroke patients is more active when virtual reality is involved during motor imagery as indicated by their respective scalp maps of band power and spectral entropy.ConclusionThe resulting activation of stroke patient’s motor cortices in this study reveals evidence that it is induced by imagination of movement and virtual reality supports motor imagery. The framework of the current study also provides an efficient way to investigate motor imagery and virtual reality during post-stroke rehabilitation.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12938-023-01124-9.