6533b86dfe1ef96bd12c9f92

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Can loss of sensory attenuation be accurately demonstrated using two effectors simultaneously?

subject

description

Sir, Recently, Parees and colleagues (2014) compared patients with functional (psychogenic) movement disorders and healthy subjects who were asked to match a force delivered to their left finger by pressing on it directly, or by operating a joystick to press down on it, with the other hand. They observed that healthy subjects generated more force than required when pressing directly on their finger (compared with using the joystick), whereas patients did not. They interpreted and discussed this result as a loss of sensory attenuation that typically occurs in healthy subjects during self-generated movements and suggested by return, that it illustrates an altered sense of agency for the patients. More specifically, sensory attenuation is generally observed when the intensity of sensation induced by self-generated movements is reduced, for instance when tickling ourselves (Blakemore et al. , 1998 …