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The Journal of Neuroscience, July 1, 2009, 29(26):8483-8492; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0683-09.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Perceptual Integration of Illusory and Imagined Kinesthetic Images

Chloé Thyrion and Jean-Pierre Roll

Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Humaine, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6149, Université de Provence, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 13331 Marseille, France

Correspondence should be addressed to Chloé Thyrion, Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Humaine, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6149, Université de Provence, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Pôle 3C, Case B, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France. Email: chloe.thyrion{at}etu.univ-provence.fr

It is generally agreed that motor imagery involves kinesthetic sensations especially as far as first-person imagery is concerned. It was proposed to determine the extent to which motor imagery and vibration-induced illusory sensations of movement are integrated perceptually. Imagined and illusory hand movements were evoked both separately and in various combinations in 12 volunteers. After each trial, the participants were asked to draw the movement trajectory perceived. In all the subjects, propriomimetic vibration patterns applied to various wrist muscles induced spatially oriented or more complex illusory hand movements such as writing or drawing. Depending on the instructions, the subjects were also able to produce imagined hand movements in various directions and at two different velocities. When straight illusory and imagined movements were evoked simultaneously, all the subjects perceived a single movement trajectory, in which the direction and the velocity of the two ongoing sensations were exactly integrated. This perceptual integration also occurred in the case of more complex movements, such as writing and drawing, giving rise to the perception of original trajectories also combining the features of both motor images. Because these two kinesthetic images, the one intentionally and centrally induced and the other peripherally evoked, activate almost the same neural network including cortical sensory and motor areas, parietal regions, and the cerebellum, these results suggest that common processes may be involved in such a perceptual fusion. The nature of these common processes is discussed, and some fields of research in which these findings could potentially be applied are suggested.

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Received Feb. 10, 2009; revised April 29, 2009; accepted May 23, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Chloé Thyrion, Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Humaine, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6149, Université de Provence, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Pôle 3C, Case B, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France. Email: chloe.thyrion{at}etu.univ-provence.fr

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