Biomedical subjects

Angelo Maravita

Publications and source records attributed to Angelo Maravita.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Preattentive interference between touch and audition: a case study on multisensory alloesthesia.

Alloesthesia is a rare clinical condition that corresponds to a spatial disorder of stimulus localization, in which patients experience a given stimulus on the side opposite to the side of stimulation. Whereas it has been mostly described for unisensory stimulations, evidence of multisensory alloesthesia is only anecdotal. Here, we investigated a case of multisensory auditory-tactile alloesthesia. Our data suggest that auditory-tactile integration and multisensory alloesthesia not only depend on attentional mechanisms, but also on somatotopic preattentive mechanisms.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2004

Audiotactile temporal order judgments.

We report a series of three experiments in which participants made unspeeded 'Which modality came first?' temporal order judgments (TOJs) to pairs of auditory and tactile stimuli presented at varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) using the method of constant stimuli. The stimuli were presented from either the same or different locations in order to explore the potential effect of redundant spatial information on audiotactile temporal perception. In Experiment 1, the auditory and tactile stimuli had to be separated by nearly 80 ms for inexperienced participants to be able to judge their temporal order accurately (i.e., for the just noticeable difference (JND) to be achieved), no matter whether the stimuli were presented from the same or different spatial positions. More experienced psychophysical observers (Experiment 2) also failed to show any effect of relative spatial position on audiotactile TOJ performance, despite having much lower JNDs (40 ms) overall. A similar pattern of results was found in Experiment 3 when silent electrocutaneous stimulation was used rather than vibrotactile stimulation. Thus, relative spatial position seems to be a less important factor in determining performance for audiotactile TOJ than for other modality pairings (e.g., audiovisual and visuotactile).

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2004

Attentional load and sensory competition in human vision: modulation of fMRI responses by load at fixation during task-irrelevant stimulation in the peripheral visual field.

Perceptual suppression of distractors may depend on both endogenous and exogenous factors, such as attentional load of the current task and sensory competition among simultaneous stimuli, respectively. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare these two types of attentional effects and examine how they may interact in the human brain. We varied the attentional load of a visual monitoring task performed on a rapid stream at central fixation without altering the central stimuli themselves, while measuring the impact on fMRI responses to task-irrelevant peripheral checkerboards presented either unilaterally or bilaterally. Activations in visual cortex for irrelevant peripheral stimulation decreased with increasing attentional load at fixation. This relative decrease was present even in V1, but became larger for successive visual areas through to V4. Decreases in activation for contralateral peripheral checkerboards due to higher central load were more pronounced within retinotopic cortex corresponding to 'inner' peripheral locations relatively near the central targets than for more eccentric 'outer' locations, demonstrating a predominant suppression of nearby surround rather than strict 'tunnel vision' during higher task load at central fixation. Contralateral activations for peripheral stimulation in one hemifield were reduced by competition with concurrent stimulation in the other hemifield only in inferior parietal cortex, not in retinotopic areas of occipital visual cortex. In addition, central attentional load interacted with competition due to bilateral versus unilateral peripheral stimuli specifically in posterior parietal and fusiform regions. These results reveal that task-dependent attentional load, and interhemifield stimulus-competition, can produce distinct influences on the neural responses to peripheral visual stimuli within the human visual system. These distinct mechanisms in selective visual processing may be integrated within posterior parietal areas, rather than earlier occipital cortex.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Tools for the body (schema).

What happens in our brain when we use a tool to reach for a distant object? Recent neurophysiological, psychological and neuropsychological research suggests that this extended motor capability is followed by changes in specific neural networks that hold an updated map of body shape and posture (the putative "Body Schema" of classical neurology). These changes are compatible with the notion of the inclusion of tools in the "Body Schema", as if our own effector (e.g. the hand) were elongated to the tip of the tool. In this review we present empirical support for this intriguing idea from both single-neuron recordings in the monkey brain and behavioural performance of normal and brain-damaged humans. These relatively simple neural and behavioural aspects of tool-use shed light on more complex evolutionary and cognitive aspects of body representation and multisensory space coding for action.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Multisensory integration and the body schema: close to hand and within reach.

There has been a recent and dramatic growth of interest in the psychological and neural mechanisms of multisensory integration between different sensory modalities. Much of this recent research has focused specifically on how multisensory representations of body parts and of the 'peripersonal' space immediately around them, are constructed. Research has also focused on how this may lead to multisensorially determined perceptions of body parts, to action execution, and even to attributions of agency and self-ownership for the body parts in question. Converging evidence from animal and human studies suggests that the primate brain constructs various body-part-centred representations of space, based on the integration of visual, tactile and proprioceptive information. These representations can plastically change following active tool-use that extends reachable space and also modifies the representation of peripersonal space. These new results indicate that a modern cognitive neuroscience approach to the classical concept of the 'body schema' may now be within reach.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Tool-use changes multimodal spatial interactions between vision and touch in normal humans.

In a visual-tactile interference paradigm, subjects judged whether tactile vibrations arose on a finger or thumb (upper vs. lower locations), while ignoring distant visual distractor lights that also appeared in upper or lower locations. Incongruent visual distractors (e.g. a lower light combined with upper touch) disrupt such tactile judgements, particularly when appearing near the tactile stimulus (e.g. on the same side of space as the stimulated hand). Here we show that actively wielding tools can change this pattern of crossmodal interference. When such tools were held in crossed positions (connecting the left hand to the right visual field, and vice-versa), the spatial constraints on crossmodal interference reversed, so that visual distractors in the other visual field now disrupted tactile judgements most for a particular hand. This phenomenon depended on active tool-use, developing with increased experience in using the tool. We relate these results to recent physiological and neuropsychological findings.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Is the intact side really intact? Perseverative responses in patients with unilateral neglect: a productive manifestation.

The main defective manifestations of extra-personal unilateral spatial neglect concern the side of space contralateral to the hemispheric lesion (contralesional). Since the disorder is more frequent and severe after damage to the right hemisphere, patients typically fail to explore the left side and ignore stimuli located in that sector of space. The patients' behaviour in the side of space ipsilateral to the side of the lesion (ipsilesional) is not intact, however. In cancellation tasks, it can be observed that patients with unilateral neglect, in addition to failing to respond to contralesional stimuli, may show perseverative behaviour, crossing out many times the same stimulus in the ipsilesional side of the sheet. We analyzed the occurrence of this phenomenon during the execution of a cancellation task in a large series of brain-damaged patients with left- and right-sided hemispheric lesions, with and without evidence of unilateral spatial neglect, and in a group of patients suffering from senile dementia of the Alzheimer-type. Perseverative responses were found to be much more frequent in patients with spatial neglect and when the frontal lobe or subcortical structures were damaged. The results are interpreted in the context of a multi-componential view of the neglect syndrome, with reference to a distinction originally put forward by Derek Denny-Brown (1958) between 'frontal or magnetic' and 'parietal or repellent' apraxia. In patients with spatial neglect, frontal damage releases drawing perseverative behaviour in the ipsilesional sector of space. Perseveration in exploratory tasks constitutes a main instance of the productive manifestations of spatial neglect.

Aged↗

PubMed2002

The electrophysiology of tactile extinction: ERP correlates of unconscious somatosensory processing.

We examined the electrophysiological correlates of left-sided tactile extinction in a patient with right-hemisphere damage. Computer-controlled punctate touch was presented to the left, right or both index fingers in an unpredictable sequence. The patient reported his conscious tactile percept ("left", "right" or "both"). He showed extinction on 75% of bilateral trials, reporting only right stimulation for these. Somatosensory evoked potentials for unilateral stimulation showed early components over contralateral somatosensory areas (P60 and N110) for either hand. In contrast to the results observed for age-matched controls, the patient's P60 was smaller in amplitude for left-hand touch over the right hemisphere than for right-hand touch over the intact hemisphere. Bilateral trials with extinction revealed residual P60 and N110 components over the right hemisphere in response to the extinguished left touch. These results demonstrate residual unconscious somatosensory processing of extinguished touch. They also suggest that tactile extinction can be caused by attenuation rather than elimination of somatosensory responses in the damaged hemisphere, with an underlying deficit even on unilateral trials.

Aged↗

PubMed2002

Active tool use with the contralesional hand can reduce cross-modal extinction of touch on that hand.

After a unilateral brain lesion, patients may show cross-modal, visual-tactile extinction. Such patients may fail to report tactile stimuli on the contralesional hand when presented together with competing visual stimuli near the ipsilesional hand. In this work we tested the hypothesis that this cross-modal extinction may be reduced when a patient has used a tool with the contralesional hand to reach for objects in the ipsilesional visual field. Consistent with previous work, we hypothesize that active use of a tool may extend cross-modal interactions between visual stimuli at the tip of the tool and tactile stimuli on the hand wielding the tool. In the new situation of a tool connecting the contralesional hand with ipsilesional visual space, competition between stimuli on these opposite sides may be reduced, so that extinction decreases. We studied patient BV, who showed reliable cross-modal, visual-tactile extinction after right-hemisphere stroke. In two separate sessions we showed that prolonged tool use (10-20 min) with the contralesional hand in ipsilesional space reduced cross-modal extinction for up to 60-90 min post-training. We propose that an actively used tool may be effective in linking cross-modal stimuli presented along its extension. This can then overcome competition between stimuli presented on opposite sides of the body midline, thus modulating extinction.

Aged↗

PubMed2002

Interhemispheric transfer and laterality effects in simple visual reaction time in schizophrenics.

INTRODUCTION: There is evidence that schizophrenics have an abnormal corpus callosum and an abnormal pattern of cerebral asymmetries. We investigated whether there are corresponding functional abnormalities in interhemispheric transfer (IT) and laterality effects. METHODS: Medicated schizophrenic patients and matched controls were tested in the Poffenberger paradigm, that is, a simple manual reaction time (RT) paradigm with laterally presented visual stimuli designed to provide a behavioural estimate of IT. By subtracting RT averaged across the uncrossed hand-hemifield conditions, from RT averaged across the crossed hand-hemifield conditions, one can obtain an estimate of IT time. RESULTS: In schizophrenic patients the difference between crossed and uncrossed conditions was 0 because of an unusually prolonged RT in the uncrossed condition right hand/ right field. A broadly similar result has been obtained previously in the tactile modality (Ditchfield & Hemsley, 1990) and is consistent with a left hemisphere impairment. This effect was still present when the patients were retested about 2 years later. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate the existence in schizophrenic patients of a consistent slowing down of simple visuomotor responses subserved by the left hemisphere.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2002

Seeing your own touched hands in a mirror modulates cross-modal interactions.

In mirror reflections, visual stimuli in near peripersonal space (e.g., an object in the hand) can project the retinal image of far, extrapersonal stimuli "beyond" the mirror. We studied the interaction of such visual reflections with tactile stimuli in a cross-modal congruency task. We found that visual distractors produce stronger interference on tactile judgments when placed close to the stimulated hand, but observed indirectly as distant mirror reflections, than when directly observed in equivalently distant far space, even when in contact with a dummy hand or someone else's hand in the far location. The stronger visual-tactile interference for the mirror condition implies that near stimuli seen as distant reflections in a mirror view of one's own hands can activate neural networks coding peripersonal space, because these visual stimuli are coded as having a true source near to the body.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Multisensory contributions to the 3-D representation of visuotactile peripersonal space in humans: evidence from the crossmodal congruency task.

In order to determine precisely the location of a tactile stimulus presented to the hand it is necessary to know not only which part of the body has been stimulated, but also where that part of the body lies in space. This involves the multisensory integration of visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and even auditory cues regarding limb position. In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in the question of how these various sensory cues are weighted and integrated in order to enable people to localize tactile stimuli, as well as to give rise to the 'felt' position of our limbs, and ultimately the multisensory representation of 3-D peripersonal space. We highlight recent research on this topic using the crossmodal congruency task, in which participants make speeded elevation discrimination responses to vibrotactile targets presented to the thumb or index finger, while simultaneously trying to ignore irrelevant visual distractors presented from either the same (i.e., congruent) or a different (i.e., incongruent) elevation. Crossmodal congruency effects (calculated as performance on incongruent-congruent trials) are greatest when visual and vibrotactile stimuli are presented from the same azimuthal location, thus providing an index of common position across different sensory modalities. The crossmodal congruency task has been used to investigate a number of questions related to the representation of space in both normal participants and brain-damaged patients. In this review, we detail the major findings from this research, and highlight areas of convergence with other cognitive neuroscience disciplines.

Animals↗