Multisensory mechanisms of body perception in somatoform disorders

• Published in: Journal of psychosomatic research Vol. 127; p. 109837
• Main Authors: Perepelkina, O., Romanov, D., Arina, G., Volel, B., Nikolaeva, V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Inc 01-12-2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Artificial limbs; Bodily distress disorder; Body Image - psychology; Body perception; Case-Control Studies; Distortion; Female; Humans; Illusions; Male; Multisensory integration; Proprioception; Rubber; Rubber hand illusion; Sensorimotor integration; Sensory integration; Somatic symptom disorder; Somatoform disorders; Somatoform Disorders - psychology; Termination; Visual perception; Somatic symptom disorder; Body perception; Rubber hand illusion; Multisensory integration; Bodily distress disorder; Somatoform disorders
• ISSN: 0022-3999; 1879-1360
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2019.109837

According to one of the hypotheses, somatoform disorders (SD) are related to disturbed perception of bodily signals. We suspect that the disturbances and abnormalities of multisensory integration dynamics may be an additional SD mechanism. The objective of the research was to investigate multisensory bodily illusion dynamics in SD patients.
A clinical group of SD patients (n = 16) and a control group (n = 17) participated in experiments aimed at eliciting a visual-tactile rubber hand illusion (RHI) and a visual-kinesthetic virtual hand illusion (VHI).
For both illusions studied, the illusion dynamics in SD patients differed from those of healthy subjects. The visual-tactile illusion on the subjective level appeared to be less strong in SD patients, and no proprioceptive drift (PD) was detected. The subjective dynamics of the visual-kinesthetic illusion in patients were similar to those of the control group, but the PD dynamics were different: after the termination of stimuli from the artificial limb, the proprioceptive system did not return to its initial state; on the contrary, PD continued to increase.
In comparison with the norm, patients with somatoform disorders display differences in multisensory mechanisms underlying the development of body perception. The results suggest that the disturbance of visual-tactile integration of the stimuli represents one of the mechanisms of body perception distortion in somatoform disorders. It may be assumed that one of the reasons for persistent symptom perception in SD patients is the rigidity of multisensory stimuli perception, at least in the visual-motor domain.
•Multisensory mechanisms of body perception are disturbed in patients with somatoform disorders (SD).•Sense of body ownership in rubber hand illusion is lower in SD patients and no proprioceptive drift dynamics has been found.•Recovery of proprioceptive drift in moving virtual hand illusion fading phase is peculiar in SD patients.•SD patients have the rigidity of multisensory stimuli perception, at least in the visual-motor domain.