Files

No attached file found for this publication.

Details

Authors
Show more
Abstract
Hand laterality judgments (HLT) are widely used to measure body representation difficulties in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), as well as in its rehabilitation, with the aim to activate motor imagery and restore the cortical representation of the affected limb. The potential of these tasks to elicit motor imagery is critical to their use in therapy, yet, the influence of the biomechanical constraints (BMC) on HLT reaction time, supposed to reflect motor imagery, is rarely verified. Here we investigated the influence of BMC on the perception of hand postures and movements. In a first HLT experiment, CRPS patients were significantly slower than controls in judging hand stimuli, whether or not they corresponded to their affected hand. Reaction time patterns reflecting BMC were inconclusive in CRPS and controls, questioning the validity of the task in activating motor imagery. A second experiment therefore directly investigated the influence of implicit knowledge of BMC on perceptual hand movement judgments. Participants judged the perceived path of movement between two depicted hand positions, with only one of two proposed paths that is biomechanically plausible. While the controls mostly chose the biomechanically plausible path, CRPS patients did not, indicating a disturbed perception and/or use of BMC. These findings show non-lateralized body representation impairments in CRPS, possibly related to difficulties in using correct knowledge of the body’s biomechanics. Most importantly, they indicate that it seems highly challenging to measure motor imagery and BMC indexes with the HLT, which has important implications for the rehabilitation with these tasks.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Filbrich, L., Charlotte Verfaille, Barbier, O., Libouton, X., Dominique Mouraux, Berquin, A., & Legrain, V. (2022). (Re)investigating Hand Representation and Motor Imagery in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. 12th Congress of the European Pain Federation Efic, Dublin, Irland. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/267083