Body Sensorimotor Research Articles

Embodiment-related risk factors for Posttraumatic Stress, Anxiety and Depression in female victims of intimate partner violence

ABSTRACT A central notion in the field of embodiment is that body sensorimotor processes and body mental representations influence emotion, cognition and behavior. By affecting the body, intimate partner violence (IPV) can leave victims with a fragile self, and significant physical and mental health problems. In this study, we aim to examine embodiment-related variables and mental health of female victims of IPV, as well as the impact of embodiment on mental health. A total of 38 female victims of IPV (mean age 40.3 ± 10.9 years) were recruited from shelters and the community. The study assessed the levels of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Anxiety and Depression, and abilities of Movement Imagery, Interoceptive Accuracy, Interoceptive Sensibility, Body Ownership and Bodily Dissociation. Univariate, bivariate and binary regression analysis were used. PTSD, Anxiety and Depression were highly prevalent among our sample, alongside with altered values of body ownership and interoception. All three mental health disorders were significantly correlated with interoceptive self-regulation, interoceptive trusting, and bodily dissociation. For this group of women, each unit rise in the bodily dissociation scale increased two and six times the risk for developing Depression and Anxiety, respectively. The embodiment of female victims of IPV is altered, and higher bodily dissociation can be a risk factor for the development of mental health problems. Restoration of embodiment-related functions could be important for the victims to overcome the negative effects of violent relationships.

Limb apparent motion perception: Modification by tDCS, and clinically or experimentally altered bodily states

Limb apparent motion perception (LAMP) refers to the illusory visual perception of a moving limb upon observing two rapidly alternating photographs depicting the same limb in two different postures. Fast stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) induce the more visually guided perception of physically impossible movements. Slow SOAs induce the perception of physically possible movements. According to the motor theory of LAMP, the latter perception depends upon the observer's sensorimotor representations. Here, we tested this theory in two independent studies by performing a central (study 1) and peripheral (study 2) manipulation of the body's sensorimotor states during two LAMP tasks. In the first sham-controlled transcranial direct current stimulation between-subject designed study, we observed that the dampening of left sensorimotor cortex activity through cathodal stimulation biased LAMP towards the more visually guided perception of physically impossible movements for stimulus pairs at slow SOAs. In the second, online within-subject designed study, we tested three participant groups twice: (1) individuals with an acquired lower limb amputation, either while wearing or not wearing their prosthesis (2) individuals with body integrity dysphoria (i.e., with a desire for amputation of a healthy leg) while sitting in a regular position or binding up the undesired leg (to simulate the desired amputation); (3) able-bodied individuals while sitting in a normal position or sitting on one of their legs. We found that the momentary sensorimotor state crucially impacted LAMP in individuals with an amputation and able-bodied participants, but not in BID individuals. Taken together, the results of these two studies substantiate the motor theory of LAMP.

For an ethnography toward the virtual: Deleuze's transcendental empiricism and nonlinear ImMedia

In this paper, I pursue a method of ethnographic media research that foregrounds the relation of embodied experience to what Gilles Deleuze called ‘transcendental empiricism.’ For Deleuze the critique of Kant's theory of a transcendental subject grounding space-time moves thought toward an intuition of the time of becoming, the being of time itself: it is not we who constitute time, but time constitutes and reconstitutes subjectivity. The aim of such a method is to understand the organization of sensory-motor circuits that stabilizes the movement of becoming as clichés entrenched in habit. I argue that Deleuze's transcendental empiricism is a robust method to diagram South Asian media's empirical field in terms of its various circuits between the virtual and the actual. This method allows us to pragmatically diagram the doubleness of the mobile – as intensive potentializer and biopolitical control grid – in which media form dynamic feedbacked assemblages with the body's sensorimotor processes. Mobile connectivity is unmediated and direct, which is why it is both virtual and actual at once. Thus, it has a definite history while also being part of the body as a center of indetermination (virtuality).

Laryngeal Penetration During Deglutition in Normal Subjects of Various Ages

This study examined the frequency of penetration of liquid, paste, and masticated materials into the airway during videofluoroscopic studies of normal swallow in 98 normal subjects who were from 20 to 94 years of age. The purposes of the study were to define frequency and level of penetration using the penetration-aspiration scale as a result of age, bolus volume, viscosity, and gender, and to describe the body's sensorimotor response to the penetration based on audible coughs or throat clearing on the audio channel of each videotaped fluoroscopic study. Frequencies of penetration were defined in relation to bolus volume, age, gender, and bolus viscosity from swallows of 1, 3, 5, and 10 ml and cup-drinking of thin liquids; 3 ml of pudding; (1/4) of a Lorna Doone cookie; and a bite of an apple. Results showed that penetrations were significantly more frequent after age 50 and thick viscosities penetrated only in subjects age 50 and over. For persons under 50, 7.4% of swallows exhibited penetration, while for people age 50 and over, 16.8% of swallows showed penetration. Significantly more penetration occurred on larger liquid boluses. There was no relationship between gender and frequency of penetration. None of the subjects that penetrated showed a sensorimotor response to the penetration, which may relate to the relatively shallow depth of the penetration.