Attention and sensation in functional motor disorder
Robert D McIntosh1, Laura McWhirter2, Lea Ludwig3
1Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK.
Neuropsychologia
|October 3, 2017
Summary
Functional motor disorder (FMD) involves motor impairments without organic cause. This study found attention shifts may be affected, particularly somatic attention to the affected limb, impacting symptom perception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Rehabilitation Medicine
Background:
- Functional motor disorder (FMD) presents as motor impairments without identifiable organic pathology.
- Clinical signs like Hoover's sign suggest attention plays a role in FMD symptoms.
- Selective attention mechanisms are implicated in the manifestation of functional neurological symptoms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate spatial attention shifting in patients with unilateral functional upper limb weakness.
- To explore the relationship between attention and the affected side in functional motor disorder.
- To determine if detection of visual and tactile stimuli is altered by attention in FMD.
Main Methods:
- 14 patients with unilateral FMD underwent visual and tactile target detection tasks.
- Tasks involved central cues for voluntary attention shifts and peripheral cues for automatic shifts.
- Performance was compared between affected and unaffected limbs, and against age-matched controls.
Main Results:
- Approximately half of FMD patients exhibited reduced visual and/or tactile target detection on the affected side.
- The patient group demonstrated normal visual cueing effects but a unilateral absence of tactile cueing effects on the affected side.
- These findings suggest a detection cost associated with the affected limb in FMD.
Conclusions:
- The study suggests attentional abnormalities in FMD may stem from the consequences of attending to the affected side, rather than impaired attention shifting.
- Increased symptom perception during attention to the affected limb could explain absent cueing effects.
- Further research into the role of somatic attention in FMD is warranted.
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