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Movement Disorders: Volume 31, Number S2, June 2016
Author(s) -
M. Esposito,
C. Vitale,
F. Falco,
S. Corvino,
R. Allocca,
S. Peluso,
G. Santangelo,
M. Conson
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
movement disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.352
H-Index - 198
eISSN - 1531-8257
pISSN - 0885-3185
DOI - 10.1002/mds.26706
Subject(s) - citation , movement (music) , movement disorders , volume (thermodynamics) , cover (algebra) , library science , psychology , information retrieval , computer science , medicine , disease , pathology , mechanical engineering , philosophy , quantum mechanics , physics , engineering , aesthetics
Objective: To explore mental transformation of whole-body images in patients with isolated cervical\uddystonia (CD).\udBackground: Mental transformation of bodies or of body-part images is performed by simulating one’s\udown actual movements, and is likely to rely upon brain systems involved in motor planning and execution.\udPatients with CD have various clinical presentations with different degrees of postural abnormality\udconsistent with severity of dystonia. Previous evidence showed that CD patients were slower and less\udaccurate than healthy controls in mentally rotating both affected (neck) and unaffected (hands and feet)\udbody parts, but they also showed a non-significant decrement in their ability to mentally transform noncorporeal\udobjects (Fiorio et al. 2007). Thus, it cannot be established whether CD patients are unable to\udsimulate one’s own body movements (embodied simulation) or have a more general deficit in mental\udrotation. Here, we tested embodied simulation processes in CD patients by a whole-body transformation\udtask.\udMethods: Eighteen patients with isolated CD under treatment with botulinum toxin and no general\udcognitive disorders, as assessed by formal neuropsychological examination, and 18 healthy controls,\udmatched for age and education, underwent the whole-body transformation task. Participants had to\udperform left-right judgments on a schematic figure representing a front-facing or a back-facing human\udbody in different spatial orientations (Conson et al. 2014). Both Reaction Times (RTs) and error rates were\udrecorded.\udResults: A four-way mixed-design ANOVA was performed on correct RTs, with stimulus posture (frontfacing\udand back-facing) and stimulus orientation (0°, 90°, 180° and 270°) as within-subject factors, and\udwith group (CD patients and controls) as a between-subject factor. The main result was a significant\udinteraction among the three factor, F(3,102)=3,350, p= .047, partial h2 = .107, demonstrating that CD\udpatients were slower than controls when judging back-facing, but not front-facing bodies, in specific\udspatial orientations.\udConclusions: These findings showing that CD patients were specifically impaired in mentally transforming\udback-facing body images suggest that simulation of whole-body movements is impaired in this clinical\udpopulation when embodied simulation processes come into play