Understanding interactions between pain, body perception and motor control.

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If you ever hit your thumb with a hammer, your first reaction was probably to quickly withdraw your hand, and look at your thumb. At this point, you might have been surprised to realize that it looked pretty normal, while it felt to you like it had double in size. Afterwards, you might have adapted your motor strategy, first because your thumb still felt awkward holding the nail, and second because you were somewhat anxious about the fact that your action might generate more pain. This illustrates the complexity of the relationships between the pain system and the sensorimotor system. One the one hand, pain can impact on the way we perceive our body as well as on our motor behavior. Indeed, it can induce various distortions in body perception, such as changes in the perception of size, shape, position and movement of the limbs. On the other hand, visual, tactile and proprioceptive information about our body can affect our perception of pain. The long-term objective of my research program is to investigate these interactions between the pain system and the sensorimotor system in order to better understand how pain impacts on body perception and action and vice versa. Over the next five years, I will test the hypothesis that the presence of pain (or even its anticipation) impairs the ability of the brain to perceive the position and movement of the limbs, as well as to predict the consequences of motor commands. According to this hypothesis, people should rely more heavily on visual information to guide their motor actions when they are in pain. This will be assessed using a robotic system combined with a 2D virtual environment that allows the provision of altered visual feedback about the arms and their movements, the application of controlled perturbations and the precise measurement of motor performance. We will also measure the activity of brain regions involved in the control and perception of the body (with transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography) to understand the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. This research program will provide fundamental knowledge on how the human brain integrates information from different sources to create a unified representation of the body. It will benefit a number of fields including virtual reality, sports training, injury prevention and rehabilitation. It will also provide outstanding training opportunities for students from various disciplines.