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Scandola M, Beccherle M, Togni R, Caffini G, Ferrari F, Aglioti SM, Moro V. Topographic mapping of the sensorimotor qualities of empathic reactivity: A psychophysiological study in people with spinal cord injuries. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14547. [PMID: 38372443 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14547] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2023] [Revised: 01/03/2024] [Accepted: 02/04/2024] [Indexed: 02/20/2024]
Abstract
The experience of empathy for pain is underpinned by sensorimotor and affective dimensions which, although interconnected, are at least in part behaviorally and neurally distinct. Spinal cord injuries (SCI) induce a massive, below-lesion level, sensorimotor body-brain disconnection. This condition may make it possible to test whether sensorimotor deprivation alters specific dimensions of empathic reactivity to observed pain. To explore this issue, we asked SCI people with paraplegia and healthy controls to observe videos of painful or neutral stimuli administered to a hand (intact) or a foot (deafferented). The stimuli were displayed by means of a virtual reality set-up and seen from a first person (1PP) or third person (3PP) visual perspective. A number of measures were recorded ranging from explicit behaviors like explicit verbal reports on the videos, to implicit measures of muscular activity (like EMG from the corrugator and zygomatic muscles that may represent a proxy of sensorimotor empathy) and of autonomic reactivity (like the electrodermal response and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia that may represent a general proxy of affective empathy). While no across group differences in explicit verbal reports about the pain stimuli were found, SCI people exhibited reduced facial muscle reactivity to the stimuli applied to the foot (but not the hand) seen from the 1PP. Tellingly, the corrugator activity correlated with SCI participants' neuropathic pain. There were no across group differences in autonomic reactivity suggesting that SCI lesions may affect sensorimotor dimensions connected to empathy for pain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele Scandola
- NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | - Maddalena Beccherle
- NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
- CLN2S@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | | | - Giulia Caffini
- NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
| | | | - Salvatore Maria Aglioti
- CLN2S@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Fondazione Santa Lucia, IRCCS Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - Valentina Moro
- NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
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Colle L, Hilviu D, Boggio M, Toso A, Longo P, Abbate-Daga G, Garbarini F, Fossataro C. Abnormal sense of agency in eating disorders. Sci Rep 2023; 13:14176. [PMID: 37648816 PMCID: PMC10469170 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41345-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 08/24/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The feeling of controlling one's own actions and, through them, impacting the external environment (i.e. Sense of Agency-SoA) can be relevant in the eating disorders (EDs) symptomatology. Yet, it has been poorly investigated. This study aims to implicitly assess SoA exploiting the Sensory Attenuation paradigm in two groups of EDs patients (Anorexia Nervosa Restrictive and Anorexia Nervosa Binge-Purging or Bulimia Nervosa) compared to a control group. We find that controls perceive self-generated stimuli as less intense than other-generated ones showing the classic pattern of sensory attenuation. By contrast, EDs patients show the opposite pattern, with self-generated perceived as more intense than other-generated stimuli. This result indicates an alteration of the implicit component of the feeling of control in EDs patients, thus suggesting a potential implication of these results for the clinical practice and the treatment of EDs symptomatology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Livia Colle
- Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Dize Hilviu
- Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Monica Boggio
- Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Alessandra Toso
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Turin, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, Turin, Italy
| | - Paola Longo
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Turin, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, Turin, Italy
| | - Giovanni Abbate-Daga
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Turin, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, Turin, Italy
| | | | - Carlotta Fossataro
- MANIBUS Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
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Fossataro C, Galigani M, Rossi Sebastiano A, Bruno V, Ronga I, Garbarini F. Spatial proximity to others induces plastic changes in the neural representation of the peripersonal space. iScience 2022; 26:105879. [PMID: 36654859 PMCID: PMC9840938 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105879] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2022] [Revised: 11/21/2022] [Accepted: 12/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Peripersonal space (PPS) is a highly plastic "invisible bubble" surrounding the body whose boundaries are mapped through multisensory integration. Yet, it is unclear how the spatial proximity to others alters PPS boundaries. Across five experiments (N = 80), by recording behavioral and electrophysiological responses to visuo-tactile stimuli, we demonstrate that the proximity to others induces plastic changes in the neural PPS representation. The spatial proximity to someone else's hand shrinks the portion of space within which multisensory responses occur, thus reducing the PPS boundaries. This suggests that PPS representation, built from bodily and multisensory signals, plastically adapts to the presence of conspecifics to define the self-other boundaries, so that what is usually coded as "my space" is recoded as "your space". When the space is shared with conspecifics, it seems adaptive to move the other-space away from the self-space to discriminate whether external events pertain to the self-body or to other-bodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlotta Fossataro
- MANIBUS Lab, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin 10123, Italy
| | - Mattia Galigani
- MANIBUS Lab, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin 10123, Italy
| | | | - Valentina Bruno
- MANIBUS Lab, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin 10123, Italy
| | - Irene Ronga
- MANIBUS Lab, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin 10123, Italy
| | - Francesca Garbarini
- MANIBUS Lab, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin 10123, Italy,Neuroscience Institute of Turin (NIT), Turin 10123, Italy,Corresponding author
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Social, affective, and non-motoric bodily cues to the Sense of Agency: A systematic review of the experience of control. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2022; 142:104900. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2022] [Revised: 09/15/2022] [Accepted: 09/29/2022] [Indexed: 10/31/2022]
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Scarpina F, Fossataro C, Sebastiano AR, Bruni F, Scacchi M, Mauro A, Garbarini F. Behavioural evidence of altered sensory attenuation in obesity. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2021; 75:2064-2072. [PMID: 34825612 DOI: 10.1177/17470218211065766] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Body ownership (i.e., the conscious belief of owning a body) and sense of agency (i.e., being the agent of one's own movements) are part of a pre-reflective experience of bodily self, which grounds on low-level complex sensory-motor processes. Although previous literature had already investigated body ownership in obesity, sense of agency was never explored. Here, we exploited the sensory attenuation effect (i.e., an implicit marker of the sense of agency; SA effect) to investigate whether the sense of agency was altered in a sample of 18 individuals affected by obesity as compared with 18 healthy-weight individuals. In our experiment, participants were asked to rate the perceived intensity of self-generated and other-generated tactile stimuli. Healthy-weight individuals showed a significantly greater SA effect than participants affected by obesity. Indeed, while healthy-weight participants perceived self-generated stimuli as significantly less intense as compared to externally generated ones, this difference between stimuli was not reported by affected participants. Our results relative to the SA effect pinpointed an altered sense of agency in obesity. We discussed this finding within the motor control framework with reference to obesity. We encouraged future research to further explore such effect and its role in shaping the clinical features of obesity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Federica Scarpina
- Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Ospedale San Giuseppe, U.O. di Neurologia e Neuroriabilitazione, Piancavallo (VCO), Italy.,"Rita Levi Montalcini" Department of Neurosciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Carlotta Fossataro
- MANIBUS Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | | | - Francesca Bruni
- Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Ospedale San Giuseppe, U.O. di Neurologia e Neuroriabilitazione, Piancavallo (VCO), Italy
| | - Massimo Scacchi
- Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Ospedale San Giuseppe, U.O. di Medicina Generale, Piancavallo (VCO), Italy.,Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Alessandro Mauro
- Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Ospedale San Giuseppe, U.O. di Neurologia e Neuroriabilitazione, Piancavallo (VCO), Italy.,"Rita Levi Montalcini" Department of Neurosciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
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Neige C, Lebon F, Mercier C, Gaveau J, Papaxanthis C, Ruffino C. Pain, No Gain: Acute Pain Interrupts Motor Imagery Processes and Affects Mental Training-Induced Plasticity. Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:640-651. [PMID: 34313709 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab246] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2021] [Revised: 06/27/2021] [Accepted: 06/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Pain influences both motor behavior and neuroplastic adaptations induced by physical training. Motor imagery (MI) is a promising method to recover motor functions, for instance in clinical populations with limited endurance or concomitant pain. However, the influence of pain on the MI processes is not well established. This study investigated whether acute experimental pain could modulate corticospinal excitability assessed at rest and during MI (Exp. 1) and limit the use-dependent plasticity induced by MI practice (Exp. 2). Participants imagined thumb movements without pain or with painful electrical stimulations applied either on digit V or over the knee. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to measure corticospinal excitability at rest and during MI (Exp. 1) and to evoke involuntary thumb movements before and after MI practice (Exp. 2). Regardless of its location, pain prevented the increase of corticospinal excitability that is classically observed during MI. In addition, pain blocked use-dependent plasticity following MI practice, as testified by a lack of significant posttraining deviations. These findings suggest that pain interferes with MI processes, preventing the corticospinal excitability facilitation needed to induce use-dependent plasticity. Pain should be carefully considered for rehabilitation programs using MI to restore motor function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cécilia Neige
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21078 Dijon, France
| | - Florent Lebon
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21078 Dijon, France
| | - Catherine Mercier
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration, Department of Rehabilitation, Laval University, Québec, QC G1M 2S8, Canada
| | - Jérémie Gaveau
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21078 Dijon, France
| | - Charalambos Papaxanthis
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21078 Dijon, France
| | - Célia Ruffino
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21078 Dijon, France
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Gregoret L, Zamorano AM, Graven‐Nielsen T. Effects of multifocal transcranial direct current stimulation targeting the motor network during prolonged experimental pain. Eur J Pain 2021; 25:1241-1253. [DOI: 10.1002/ejp.1743] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Luisina Gregoret
- Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP) Department of Health Science and Technology Faculty of Medicine Aalborg University Aalborg Denmark
| | - Anna M. Zamorano
- Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP) Department of Health Science and Technology Faculty of Medicine Aalborg University Aalborg Denmark
| | - Thomas Graven‐Nielsen
- Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP) Department of Health Science and Technology Faculty of Medicine Aalborg University Aalborg Denmark
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Immersive virtual reality reveals that visuo-proprioceptive discrepancy enlarges the hand-centred peripersonal space. Neuropsychologia 2020; 146:107540. [PMID: 32593721 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2020] [Revised: 06/11/2020] [Accepted: 06/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
Vision and proprioception, informing the system about the body position in space, seem crucial in defining the boundary of the peripersonal space (PPS). What happens to the PPS representation when a conflict between vision and proprioception arises? We capitalize on the Immersive Virtual Reality to dissociate vision and proprioception by presenting the participants' 3D hand image in congruent/incongruent positions with respect to the participants' real hand. To measure the hand-centred PPS, we exploit multisensory integration occurring when visual stimuli are delivered simultaneously with tactile stimuli applied to a body district; i.e., visual enhancement of touch (VET). Participants are instructed to respond to tactile stimuli while ignoring visual stimuli (red LED), which can appear either near to or far from the hand receiving tactile (electrical) stimuli. The results show that, when vision and proprioception are congruent (i.e., real and virtual hand coincide), a space-dependent modulation of the VET effect occurs (with faster responses when visual stimuli are near to than far from the stimulated hand). Contrarily, when vision and proprioception are incongruent (i.e., a discrepancy between real and virtual hand is present), a comparable VET effect is observed when visual stimuli occur near to the real hand and when they occur far from it, but close to the virtual hand. These findings, also confirmed by the independent estimate of a Bayesian Causal Inference model, suggest that, when the visuo-proprioceptive discrepancy makes the coding of the hand position less precise, the hand-centred PPS is enlarged, likely to optimize reactions to external events.
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Colle L, Hilviu D, Rossi R, Garbarini F, Fossataro C. Self-Harming and Sense of Agency in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder. Front Psychiatry 2020; 11:449. [PMID: 32547429 PMCID: PMC7273851 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00449] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2019] [Accepted: 05/04/2020] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Self-harm is considered a pervasive problem in several psychopathologies, and especially in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Self-harming behaviors may be enacted for many purposes for example to regulate emotions and to reduce dissociation. BPD patients often report dissociative episodes, which may be related to an altered body awareness, and in particular to an altered awareness of the sense of agency. The sense of agency draws in part upon perceptions of being in control of our bodies and our physical movements, of being able to act upon environments. In this study, we aim to investigate whether dissociative experiences of BPD patients may be linked to an altered sense of agency and whether self-injurious actions may, through strong sensorial stimulation, constitute a coping strategy for the reduction of the distress associated with these dissociative experiences. A group of 20 BPD patients, of whom 9 presented self-harming behaviors, took part in the study and were compared with an age-matched control group of 20 healthy individuals. Sense of agency was evaluated through the Sensory Attenuation paradigm. In this paradigm, in a comparison with externally generated sensations, the degree to which perceived intensity of self-generated sensations is reduced is considered an implicit measure of sense of agency. As we expected, we found a significant difference in the perceptions of the two groups. The attenuation effect appeared to be absent in the BPD group while it was present in the control group. However, further analysis revealed that those BPD patients who engaged in self-harming behaviors presented a degree of attenuation which was similar to that of the control group. These results confirm the hypothesis that self-injurious actions constitute a coping strategy for increasing the sense of agency. We finally discuss the correlation of these experimental results with some clinical self-evaluation measures assessing dissociation, anxiety, depression, and affective dysregulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Livia Colle
- Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Dize Hilviu
- Psychology Department, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Roberta Rossi
- Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy
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