Short-term visual deprivation boosts the flexibility of body representation

Short-term visual deprivation by blindfolding influences tactile acuity and orientation in space and, on a neural level, leads to enhanced excitability of visual and motor cortices. However, to the best of our knowledge, the possible effects of short-term visual deprivation on body representation have not been examined. In the present study, we tested two groups of 30 healthy participants with the somatic rubber hand illusion, a well-established paradigm to probe the dynamic plasticity of body representation. Before the start of the procedure, the experimental group was blindfolded for 120 minutes, while the control group wore transparent goggles for the same amount of time. We found that although there was no difference in the subjective feeling of ownership of the rubber hand during the illusion, the blindfolded group showed a significantly larger recalibration of hand position sense towards the location of the rubber hand than the control group. This finding suggests that short-term visual deprivation boosts plasticity of body representation in terms of multisensory spatial recalibration of hand position sense.