Emotional Information and Communication Technology Industrial Association, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Pain Med. 2021 Jun 4;22(6):1411-1419. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnaa482.
So far, dysfunction in mental rotation has been assessed in relation to the left- or right-sided CRPS. Here we examined mental rotation in patients with upper or lower limb CRPS. Considering the potential role of socio-emotional functioning on the perception of body image, we further investigated the association between performance on mental rotation and socio-emotional characteristics.
We examined the performance of 36 patients with upper or lower limb CRPS on the limb laterality recognition. Accuracy and response times for pictures of hands and feet at 4 rotation angles were evaluated. Socio-emotional functioning was measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Scale and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale.
Patients with upper limb pain showed longer RTs to recognize the laterality of hands than feet (P = 0.002), whereas patients with lower limb pain showed longer RTs for feet than hands (P = 0.039). Exploratory correlation analyses revealed that RTs for feet were negatively correlated with the levels of empathic ability to take another's perspective (P = 0.006) and positively correlated with the level of emotional difficulty in identifying feelings (P = 0.006).
This study is the first to report selectively impaired mental rotation of hands vs feet in patients with upper or lower limb CRPS. The findings suggest that impaired mental rotation derives from relative deficits in the representation of the affected limb. Correlations between impaired mental rotation and socio-emotional inability indicate that an altered body schema may be closely associated with impaired social cognitive aspects in CRPS patients.
到目前为止，精神旋转功能障碍已被评估与左或右侧复杂性区域疼痛综合征（CRPS）有关。在这里，我们检查了上肢或下肢 CRPS 患者的精神旋转能力。考虑到社会情感功能对身体意象感知的潜在作用，我们进一步研究了精神旋转能力与社会情感特征之间的关联。
我们检查了 36 名上肢或下肢 CRPS 患者对手和脚的图片在 4 个旋转角度的肢体偏侧性识别的表现。评估了手和脚图片的准确性和反应时间。社会情感功能通过人际反应性量表和多伦多述情障碍量表进行测量。
上肢疼痛患者识别手的偏侧性的 RT 长于脚（P=0.002），而下肢疼痛患者识别脚的偏侧性的 RT 长于手（P=0.039）。探索性相关分析显示，脚的 RT 与换位思考的共情能力水平呈负相关（P=0.006），与识别感觉的情绪困难水平呈正相关（P=0.006）。
这项研究首次报告了上肢或下肢 CRPS 患者手部相对于脚部的精神旋转功能障碍。研究结果表明，精神旋转功能障碍源自受影响肢体的代表相对缺陷。精神旋转功能障碍与社会情感能力障碍之间的相关性表明，改变的身体图式可能与 CRPS 患者的受损社会认知方面密切相关。
