Dipartimento di Psicologia

Descrizione del progetto

In the last two decades, the neurocognitive mechanisms of sensory-motor awareness have been widely studied but are still far from being fully understood.
In the ABO-COBRA project this topic will be investigated from a neuropsychological perspective.
The study of the paradoxical behaviors shown in pathological conditions, where motor and bodily awareness are dramatically impaired after a brain damage, can shed light on the normal neurocognitive mechanisms involved in the construction of the conscious self.
The general goal of the present project is to create an integrated model of motor and bodily awareness investigating how specific cortical regions are implicated in the emergence of the conscious experience of the self as an acting body.
As far as the motor domain is concerned, we investigated the neurocognitive bases of motor awareness studying the puzzling behaviors shown by brain-damaged patients affected by anosognosia for hemiplegia.
These patients are strongly convinced of being able to move their paralyzed limb, despite obvious evidence that they cannot.
Recently, the PI and her colleagues demonstrated that the subjective experience of moving a paralyzed limb causes objective consequences on the patients' motor behavior of the intact limb.
That is an altered motor awareness (the wrong feeling of being still able to move) affect the execution of normal movement.
However, to date, no neuro-functional evidence has been reported to support this behavioral finding: its uncovering represents the first goal of the present project.
The ABO-COBRA project posits, as a crucial assumption, a strict relation between motor and body awareness, implying that body schema can be considered action-oriented in nature.
Hence, we intend to study pathological behaviors where bodily awareness is dramatically impaired, in order to investigate whether and how an impaired feeling of body awareness can affect motor control.
Our research will focus on a monothematic delusion of ownership, recently described, for the first time, by the PI and her colleagues, called ‘alien limb embodiment'.
We observed this behavior in brain-damaged patients, who, although not explicitly denying the ownership of their contralesional upper limb, claimed that the examiner's hand was their own hand.
Our previous studies showed that this pathological phenomenon is not a mere verbal confabulation, but it reflects an embodiment mechanism capable of altering the patients' motor and somatosensory conscious behaviors.
The second goal of the present project is the investigation of the anatomical correlates of this monothematic delusion of ownership.
This would help us in the definition of the neural bases of bodily awareness, within an integrated model of somatosensory and motor experience.
Finally, the third goal of this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the relation between motor, sensory and body representations, investigating neurophysiological counterparts of the paradoxical behaviors shown by brain-damaged patients.
The “conscious brain” will be investigated using well-characterized cognitive tasks and established instrumental techniques, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Electroencephalography and Electromyography.
Similar cognitive tasks will also be employed in patients with brain tumor undergoing awake surgery and intraoperative functional brain mapping with Direct Electrical Stimulation.
It is worth noticing that the ABO-COBRA project can have important theoretical and clinical consequences. From a theoretical point of view, our work, tackling the neuro-cognitive mechanisms of motor and bodily awareness, can substantially improve our understanding of the neural bases of conscious behaviors.
From a clinical point of view, the results from the proposed studies may produce a better understanding of sensory-motor awareness deficits and may help in the construction of more efficient rehabilitative paradigms.

Note

Bando di ricerca: SIR - Scientific Independence of young Researchers