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Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses

Changes in body representation may affect pain perception. The effect of a distorted body image, such as the telescoping effect in amputee patients, on pain perception, is unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether distorting an embodied virtual arm in virtual reality (simulating the telescopi...

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Autores principales: Matamala-Gomez, Marta, Nierula, Birgit, Donegan, Tony, Slater, Mel, Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31973014
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm9020291
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author Matamala-Gomez, Marta
Nierula, Birgit
Donegan, Tony
Slater, Mel
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
author_facet Matamala-Gomez, Marta
Nierula, Birgit
Donegan, Tony
Slater, Mel
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
author_sort Matamala-Gomez, Marta
collection PubMed
description Changes in body representation may affect pain perception. The effect of a distorted body image, such as the telescoping effect in amputee patients, on pain perception, is unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether distorting an embodied virtual arm in virtual reality (simulating the telescoping effect in amputees) modulated pain perception and anticipatory responses to pain in healthy participants. Twenty-seven right-handed participants were immersed in virtual reality and the virtual arm was shown with three different levels of distortion with a virtual threatening stimulus either approaching or contacting the virtual hand. We evaluated pain/discomfort ratings, ownership, and skin conductance responses (SCRs) after each condition. Viewing a distorted virtual arm enhances the SCR to a threatening event with respect to viewing a normal control arm, but when viewing a reddened-distorted virtual arm, SCR was comparatively reduced in response to the threat. There was a positive relationship between the level of ownership over the distorted and reddened-distorted virtual arms with the level of pain/discomfort, but not in the normal control arm. Contact with the threatening stimulus significantly enhances SCR and pain/discomfort, while reduced SCR and pain/discomfort were seen in the simulated-contact condition. These results provide further evidence of a bi-directional link between body image and pain perception.
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spelling pubmed-70742862020-03-19 Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses Matamala-Gomez, Marta Nierula, Birgit Donegan, Tony Slater, Mel Sanchez-Vives, Maria V. J Clin Med Article Changes in body representation may affect pain perception. The effect of a distorted body image, such as the telescoping effect in amputee patients, on pain perception, is unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether distorting an embodied virtual arm in virtual reality (simulating the telescoping effect in amputees) modulated pain perception and anticipatory responses to pain in healthy participants. Twenty-seven right-handed participants were immersed in virtual reality and the virtual arm was shown with three different levels of distortion with a virtual threatening stimulus either approaching or contacting the virtual hand. We evaluated pain/discomfort ratings, ownership, and skin conductance responses (SCRs) after each condition. Viewing a distorted virtual arm enhances the SCR to a threatening event with respect to viewing a normal control arm, but when viewing a reddened-distorted virtual arm, SCR was comparatively reduced in response to the threat. There was a positive relationship between the level of ownership over the distorted and reddened-distorted virtual arms with the level of pain/discomfort, but not in the normal control arm. Contact with the threatening stimulus significantly enhances SCR and pain/discomfort, while reduced SCR and pain/discomfort were seen in the simulated-contact condition. These results provide further evidence of a bi-directional link between body image and pain perception. MDPI 2020-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7074286/ /pubmed/31973014 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm9020291 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Matamala-Gomez, Marta
Nierula, Birgit
Donegan, Tony
Slater, Mel
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title_full Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title_fullStr Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title_full_unstemmed Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title_short Manipulating the Perceived Shape and Color of a Virtual Limb Can Modulate Pain Responses
title_sort manipulating the perceived shape and color of a virtual limb can modulate pain responses
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31973014
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm9020291
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