Does CRPS impair visuo-motor coordination in peripersonal space?
(2017) International Multisensory Research Forum — Location: Nashville (17.May.2017)
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- Abstract
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is an affection characterized by chronic pain, motor and vegetative symptoms, but also by cognitive symptoms affecting body perception and representation. In addition, neglect-like deficits were clinically described. However, CRPS patients’ performances at standard neglect tests are inconsistent and so far, we cannot conclude that these cognitive changes extend to stimuli presented in the space outside the body (i.e. peripersonal). Therefore, we used a line bisection task in a virtual reality environment in order to test whether upper-limb patients, in comparison to a matched control group, present an impaired perception and exploration of the peripersonal space around the affected hand. We hypothesized that these impairments would also be mediated by the vision of the affected hand and the feeling of where this hand is located (proprioception). To test these hypotheses, CRPS participants were asked to move a robotic handle with their unaffected hand in order to bisect the middle of lines projected on different positions on a horizontal semi-reflective mirror screen. Throughout the different testing conditions, they were asked to perform the task either in the workspace corresponding to their affected or unaffected body side, to put their affected hand inside or outside the workspace and to perform the task either while seeing or not their hands. Results showed that CRPS patients had a general bisecting bias towards the left side of space that were significantly bigger than deviations in the control participants, who only showed a tendency to bisect lines to the left. Our results are in line with previous studies stating a visuospatial deficit in the upper-limb CRPS population. General leftward biases are known as pseudoneglect, even in healthy population. We hypothesize that such an initially common visuospatial deviation could be exaggerated in CRPS patients due to a global attentional deficit.
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Citations
Verfaille, C., Cordova Bulens, D., Filbrich, L., Barbier, O., Libouton, X., Fraselle, V., Mouraux, D., Berquin, A., Legrain, V., & et al. (2017). Does CRPS impair visuo-motor coordination in peripersonal space? International Multisensory Research Forum, Nashville. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/267091