Cabolis Katerina, Steinberg Anne, Ferrè Elisa Raffaella
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK.
Exp Brain Res. 2018 Mar;236(3):859-865. doi: 10.1007/s00221-018-5167-9. Epub 2018 Jan 22.
Vestibular-multisensory interactions are essential for self-motion, navigation and postural stability. Despite evidence suggesting shared brain areas between vestibular and somatosensory inputs, no study has yet investigated whether somatosensory information influences vestibular perception. Here, we used signal detection methods to identify whether somatosensory stimulation might interact with vestibular events in a vestibular detection task. Participants were instructed to detect near-threshold vestibular roll-rotation sensations delivered by galvanic vestibular stimulation in one-half of experimental trials. A vibrotactile signal occurred to the index fingers of both hands in half of the trials, independent of vestibular signals. We found that vibrotactile somatosensory stimulation decreased perceptual vestibular sensitivity. The results are compatible with a gain regulation mechanism between vestibular and somatosensory modalities.
前庭-多感官相互作用对于自我运动、导航和姿势稳定性至关重要。尽管有证据表明前庭和躯体感觉输入存在共享脑区，但尚无研究探讨躯体感觉信息是否会影响前庭感知。在此，我们使用信号检测方法来确定在一项前庭检测任务中，躯体感觉刺激是否可能与前庭事件相互作用。在一半的实验试次中，参与者被要求检测由前庭电刺激传递的接近阈值的前庭滚转旋转感觉。在一半的试次中，双手食指会出现振动触觉信号，与前庭信号无关。我们发现，振动触觉躯体感觉刺激降低了前庭感知敏感性。这些结果与前庭和躯体感觉模态之间的增益调节机制相符。
