A long-lasting improvement of somatosensory function after prism adaptation, a case study

Previous studies have observed a reduction of visual and representational neglect symptoms after visuo-manual adaptation to rightward displacing prisms. Recently, improvements have also been observed on somatosensory tasks, such as locating the centre of a haptically explored circle and tactile double simultaneous stimulation. In the current single case study we assessed whether prism adaptation with the ipsilesional hand improved two aspects of contralesional somatosensory function, pressure sensitivity and proprioception. After the first application of prism adaptation improvements in pressure sensitivity and proprioception were observed. A second prism adaptation confirmed the improvements in contralesional somatosensory function. The effects of prism adaptation on position sense were longer lasting than have been reported previously, but consistent with reductions of visual neglect symptoms after prism adaptation. The current findings suggest that prism adaptation can have a non-spatial effect on neglect-related supra-modal deficits.