Multisensory integration in kinesthesia

动觉中的多感觉整合

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-07013
• 负责人: Collins, David
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=716232
• 关键词: Multisensory; integration; kinesthesia

Kinesthesia, the ability to accurately perceive the position and movement of the body without the aid of vision, is vital for the control of human movement. The study of this remarkable ability has had a long and interesting history. Initially, "corollary" commands from the brain, associated with the descending command to move, were thought to mediate our kinesthetic senses. Subsequently, receptors in joints held favor as the main kinesthetic input signals. Since the 1970's, however, signals from muscle spindles (length sensitive receptors in muscle) have consistently been demonstrated to provide signals that are important for kinesthesia. In more recent years, evidence has accumulated that signals from receptors in the skin also contribute. The prosed research program is designed to determine how signals from multiple sensory modalities work together for kinesthesia. Feedback from cuntaneous receptos, muscle spindles and bvison will be manipulated to determine how the different sources of kinesthetic information are "integrated" to provide our kinesthetic ability. Cutaneous receptors will be activated by stretching the skin to mimic the way that skin stretches during natural movements. Muscle spindles will be activated by exploiting history dependent changes in their discharge (thixotropy), to evoke illusions of altered postion, and vibration will be used to produce illusions of movement. Vision will be manipulated by having participants view their arm in a virtual reality space in which at times the virtual hand accurately reflects their own movements and other times the virtual hand is controlled by the experimenter. The various input signals (cutaneous receptors, muscle spindles, vision, corollary discharge) will be manipulated such that they are either all consistent with a given movement (i.e. flexion or extension) or conflict (i.e. cutaneous and muscle input consistent with flexion, vision and corollary discharge consistent with extension). In some experiments participants will match perceived movements of the (stationary) experimental limb with voluntary movements around the homologous joint on the opposite side of the body. The amplitude of the voluntary "matching'" movements will be used to quantify the amplitude of illusory movements perceived under different conditions. In other experiments, participants will reach or point to virtual targets and the influence of the various input signals will be assessed by errors in trajectories and end points. The results of these experiments will contribute to our understanding of how different sensory modalities are used for kinesthesia.

动觉是一种在没有视觉帮助的情况下准确感知身体位置和运动的能力，对控制人体运动至关重要。对这种非凡能力的研究已经有了一段漫长而有趣的历史。最初，来自大脑的“必然”命令，与下行的移动命令相关联，被认为是调节我们的动觉感觉。随后，关节中的受体被认为是主要的动觉输入信号。然而，自20世纪70年代以来，来自肌肉纺锤体（肌肉中的长度敏感受体）的信号一直被证明为运动感提供重要的信号。近年来，越来越多的证据表明，来自皮肤受体的信号也起了作用。拟议的研究计划旨在确定来自多种感觉模式的信号如何共同作用于动觉。来自于自发性感受器、肌肉纺锤波和视觉的反馈将被操纵，以决定如何将不同来源的动觉信息“整合”起来，以提供我们的动觉能力。皮肤感受器将通过拉伸皮肤来激活，以模仿皮肤在自然运动中拉伸的方式。肌肉纺锤体将通过利用其放电的历史依赖变化（触变性）来激活，以唤起改变位置的幻觉，并且振动将用于产生运动的幻觉。视觉将通过让参与者在虚拟现实空间中观察他们的手臂来控制，在虚拟现实空间中，虚拟手有时会准确地反映他们自己的动作，而其他时候虚拟手则由实验者控制。各种输入信号（皮肤受体、肌肉纺锤体、视觉、必然放电）将被操纵，使它们要么与给定的运动（即屈曲或伸展）一致，要么冲突（即皮肤和肌肉输入与屈曲、视觉和必然放电与伸展一致）。在一些实验中，参与者将感知到的（静止的）实验肢体的运动与身体另一侧的同类关节周围的自主运动相匹配。自愿“匹配”运动的幅度将被用来量化在不同条件下感知到的虚幻运动的幅度。在其他实验中，参与者将到达或指向虚拟目标，各种输入信号的影响将通过轨迹和终点的误差来评估。这些实验的结果将有助于我们理解不同的感觉模式是如何用于动觉的。