After-effects of visuo-manual adaptation to prisms on body posture in normal subjects

Postural equilibrium is known to be controlled by sensorimotor reflexes and automatic control loops but also depends on high-level body representation in space, probably implicating the right temporoparietal cortex. Indeed, short-term prism adaptation to a 10 degrees rightward visual shift has been shown to reduce predominant postural imbalance in patients with right hemisphere damage, as it did for neglect symptoms. These effects are likely to be explained by a high level effect of prism adaptation on body and space representation, rather than by a sensorimotor effect. Cognitive after-effects of prism adaptation to a leftward visual shift, suggesting neglect-like symptoms, have also recently been shown in normal subjects on line bisection tasks. In the present study, we investigated the effect of wedge prism adaptation on postural control in normal subjects. Two groups of seven healthy subjects were either adapted to a leftward or a rightward visual shift. Results showed that our procedure induced changes in lateral postural control in normal subjects. Furthermore, this lateral postural after-effect was dependent on direction of prism adaptation. Indeed, only adaptation to a leftward visual shift induced significant rightward postural bias in normal subjects. The rightward postural lateral displacement was negatively correlated with the visual vertical. Both transfer and direction specific effect of visuo-manual adaptation to prisms on postural control suggest that effects of adaptation act more on high-level postural control linked to body representation in space or at least reveal close interaction between sensorimotor plasticity and body representation.