What’s left of the mirror illusion when the mirror can no longer be seen? Bilateral integration of proprioceptive afferents

•Muscle afferents of one arm can affect both ipsilateral and contralateral perceptual estimates.•In the classic mirror paradigm, muscle afferents from the reflected arm and visual feedback effects can’t be disentangled.•We showed that mirror illusion results from the visual and proprioceptive signal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience 2017-10, Vol.362, p.118-126
Main Authors: Chancel, Marie, Kavounoudias, Anne, Guerraz, Michel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arm - physiology
Biomechanical Phenomena
Cognitive science
Female
Functional Laterality
Humans
Illusions - physiology
kinesthesia
Lenses
Male
mirror paradigm
Motor Activity - physiology
Muscle, Skeletal - physiology
proprioception
Proprioception - physiology
Psychology
Psychophysics
sensory integration
Time Factors
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:•Muscle afferents of one arm can affect both ipsilateral and contralateral perceptual estimates.•In the classic mirror paradigm, muscle afferents from the reflected arm and visual feedback effects can’t be disentangled.•We showed that mirror illusion results from the visual and proprioceptive signals from the two arms.•Results confirm that proprioceptive afferents are integrated bilaterally for the purpose of kinesthesia. Recent data suggest that manipulating the muscle afferents of one arm affects both ipsilateral and contralateral perceptual estimates. Here, we used the mirror paradigm to study the bimanual integration of kinesthetic muscle afferents. The reflection of a moving hand in a mirror positioned in the sagittal plane creates an illusion of symmetrical bimanual movement. Although vision clearly has a role in kinesthesia, its role in the mirror illusion might have been overestimated. Conversely, the role of bimanual integration of muscle afferents might have been underestimated. We hypothesized that muscle-proprioceptive afferents of the passively displaced arm (the image of which was reflected in the mirror) are involved in this illusion. We evoked in 19 healthy adult participants the mirror illusion by displacing passively their left arm, the image of which was reflected in the mirror. Once participants experienced the illusion that their hidden right arm was moving, we then either occluded their view of the mirror (using occlusive glasses) and/or prevent the passive left arm displacement. Participants’ illusion characteristics (duration and kinematic) under these conditions were compared with classical mirror illusion (without visual occlusion). We found that as long as the arm was still moving, the kinesthetic illusion decayed slowly after visual occlusion. These findings suggest that the mirror illusion results from the combination of visuo-proprioceptive signals from the two arms and is not purely visual in origin. Our findings also support the more general concept whereby proprioceptive afferents are integrated bilaterally for the purpose of kinesthesia during bimanual tasks.
ISSN:0306-4522
1873-7544
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.08.036