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Abstract
Tying the hands behind the back has detrimental effects on sensorimotor perceptual tasks. Here we provide evidence that beta band oscillatory activity in a resting state condition might play a crucial role in such detrimental effects. EEG activity at rest was measured from thirty young participants (mean age = 24.03) in two different body posture conditions. In one condition participants were required to keep their hands freely resting on the table. In the other condition, participants’ hands were tied behind their back. Increased beta power was observed in the left inferior frontal gyrus during the tied hands condition compared to the free hands condition. A control experiment ruled out alternative explanations for observed change in beta power, including muscle tension. Our findings provide new insights on how body postural manipulations impact on perceptual tasks and brain activity.
Highlights
It is well known that the physical body plays a key role in the way in which the brain encodes the environment; in everyday life cognitive processes are influenced by the sensory and motor experiences of the body
The analysis revealed increased beta power in tied hands condition compared to free hands condition and the difference between these two conditions was most pronounced over left inferior frontal electrodes (Table 1 and Fig 1)
As regards signal source localization, the comparison between electrophysiological activity for beta power between free and tied hands conditions showed that the main signal source was in the left inferior frontal gyrus (l-IFG) (MNI: x = -35, y = 10, z = 15; t = 7.21) (Fig 2)
Summary
It is well known that the physical body plays a key role in the way in which the brain encodes the environment; in everyday life cognitive processes are influenced by the sensory and motor experiences of the body. On body posture and brain’s intrinsic activity has been shown to affect perception of both static and moving objects [9] All these results suggest that information regarding the current positioning of body or body parts is required for the encoding of visual information. A feasible way to understand how body posture shapes visual encoding of actions is looking at the interaction between posture manipulations and intrinsic brain activity. Subjects were asked to contract and to keep the contraction of specific muscles during the tied hands condition
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