Agency judgments in post-stroke patients with sensorimotor deficits
Yu Miyawaki1,2, Takeshi Otani3, Shu Morioka1,4
1Graduate School of Health Science, Kio University, Kitakaturagi-gun, Nara, Japan.
Plos One
|March 19, 2020
Summary
Stroke patients with sensorimotor deficits show impaired sense of agency, misattributing others' movements as their own. This agency deficit affects both paretic and non-paretic limbs, suggesting broader neurological impacts beyond sensorimotor control.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Rehabilitation Medicine
Background:
- Sense of agency, the feeling of controlling one's actions, is linked to the sensorimotor system's comparison of predictions and feedback.
- Sensorimotor deficits, such as those following a stroke, may disrupt this system and impair agency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if sensorimotor deficits in post-stroke patients impair their sense of agency.
- To examine agency judgments in patients with subcortical strokes affecting sensorimotor regions.
Main Methods:
- A self-other attribution task was used, where post-stroke patients traced lines and judged if cursor feedback matched their movement or an "other's".
- The experiment was conducted using both paretic and non-paretic upper limbs in stroke patients.
- Performance was compared against healthy controls.
Main Results:
- Post-stroke patients exhibited significantly more self-attributions of others' movements compared to controls.
- This misattribution of agency was observed in both paretic and non-paretic limbs.
Conclusions:
- Sensorimotor deficits following stroke lead to misattributions in agency judgments, impacting both affected and unaffected limbs.
- These findings suggest that agency impairment in stroke patients may involve more than just sensorimotor system malfunctions, potentially relating to broader cue integration processes.
