The disappearing hand: vestibular stimulation does not improve hand localisation

PeerJ

article

Luzia Grabherr¹  Leslie N. Russek¹  Valeria Bellan¹  Mohammad Shohag¹  Danny Camfferman¹  G. Lorimer Moseley¹ 

[1] School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia;Psychiatric Liaison Service, University Hospital of Lausanne;Clarkson University, Physical Therapy Department;Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca

关键词: Caloric vestibular stimulation;    Vestibular system;    Proprioception;    Multisensory illusion;    Bodily self-consciousness;    Self-location;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.7201

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Background Bodily self-consciousness depends on the coherent integration of sensory information. In addition to visual and somatosensory information processing, vestibular contributions have been proposed and investigated. Vestibular information seems especially important for self-location, but remains difficult to study. Methods This randomised controlled experiment used the MIRAGE multisensory illusion box to induce a conflict between the visually- and proprioceptively-encoded position of one hand. Over time, the perceived location of the hand slowly shifts, due to the fact that proprioceptive input is progressively weighted more heavily than the visual input. We hypothesised that left cold caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) augments this shift in hand localisation. Results The results from 24 healthy participants do not support our hypothesis: CVS had no effect on the estimations with which the perceived position of the hand shifted from the visually- to the proprioceptively-encoded position. Participants were more likely to report that their hand was ‘no longer there’ after CVS. Taken together, neither the physical nor the subjective data provide evidence for vestibular enhanced self-location.

【 授权许可】

CC BY