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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Motor Imagery Performance Through Embodied Digital Twins in a Virtual Reality-Enabled Brain-Computer Interface Environment

Motor Imagery Performance Through Embodied Digital Twins in a Virtual Reality-Enabled Brain-Computer Interface Environment

Published on: May 10, 2024

Can imagery become reality?

E L Santarcangelo¹, E Scattina, G Carli

¹Department of Physiological Sciences, University of Pisa, Via San Zeno 31, Pisa, Italy. enricals@dfb.unipi.it

Experimental Brain Research

|September 18, 2010

Summary

Highly hypnotizable individuals can translate vivid sensory imagery into involuntary physical responses. This study confirms that imagined sensations, like anesthesia or head rotation, can alter the vestibulospinal reflex.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psychology
Human Physiology

Background:

Highly hypnotizable individuals exhibit involuntary behavioral and perceptual changes during hypnosis.
Sensory imagination in hypnotizable subjects can mimic real sensory experiences.
The vestibulospinal (VS) reflex is a key indicator of balance and posture control, influenced by head position and not typically under voluntary control.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the translation of sensory imagination into actual perception.
To confirm that such translation results in genuine involuntary responses.
To examine imagery-induced modulation of the vestibulospinal reflex in individuals with varying hypnotizability.

Main Methods:

Assessed the earlier component of the vestibulospinal reflex in highly (Highs) and low (Lows) hypnotizable subjects.
Utilized specific sensory imagery paradigms: "obstructive" (anesthesia) and "constructive" (head rotation).
Measured changes in VS reflex amplitude and the plane of body sway in response to imagined scenarios.

Main Results:

Both Highs and Lows experiencing anesthesia imagery showed reduced VS reflex amplitude in the frontal plane.
Only Highs demonstrated a shift in the plane of body sway from frontal to sagittal, mirroring imagined head rotation.
These observed effects were involuntary and linked to the vividness of the sensory imagination.

Conclusions:

Sensory imagination can be translated into real perceptual changes and involuntary physiological responses.
The vestibulospinal reflex is modulated by vivid sensory imagination, particularly in highly hypnotizable individuals.
This modulation provides evidence for a genuine link between imagination and physical action, bypassing voluntary control.