bioRxiv · 10.1101/231340
Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s disease changes perception in the Rubber Hand Illusion
Abstract
Parkinsons disease (PD) alters cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic circuitry and susceptibility to an illusion of bodily awareness, the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI). Bodily awareness is thought to result from multisensory integration in a predominantly cortical network; the role of subcortical connections is unknown. We studied the effect of modulating cortico-subcortical circuitry on multisensory integration for bodily awareness in PD patients treated with subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) using the RHI experiment. Typically, synchronous visuo-tactile cues induce a false perception of touch on the rubber hand as if it were the subjects hand, whereas asynchronous visuo-tactile cues do not. However, we found that in the asynchronous condition, patients in the off-stimulation state did not reject the RHI as strongly as healthy controls; switching on STN-DBS partially normalised their responses. Patients in the off-stimulation state also misjudged the position of their hand, indicating it to be closer to the rubber hand than controls. However, STN-DBS did not affect proprioceptive judgements or subsequent arm movements altered by the perceptual effects of the illusion. Our findings support the idea that the STN and subcortical connections have a key role in multisensory integration for bodily awareness. Decisionmaking in multisensory bodily illusions is discussed.
Source connections
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Ding, C., Palmer, C. J., Hohwy, J., Youssef, G. J., Paton, B., Tsuchiya, N., Stout, J. C., Thyagarajan, D.. 2017-12-11. Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s disease changes perception in the Rubber Hand Illusion. https://doi.org/10.1101/231340
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.