Salvato Gerardo, Crottini Francesco, Crotti Daniele, Tajani Marcella, Tarlarini Patrizia, Crucianelli Laura, Fazia Teresa, Basilico Stefania, Corradi Ettore, Gandola Martina, Bottini Gabriella
Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Cognitive Neuropsychology Centre, ASST "Grande Ospedale Metropolitano" Niguarda, Milano, Italy.
Transl Psychiatry. 2025 Mar 29;15(1):109. doi: 10.1038/s41398-025-03341-3.
The awareness of our body arises from the convergence between physical (e.g., autonomic signals, perception of body in space) and mental (e.g., subjective sensations) components. The divergence between these components could characterise bodily self-awareness distortions that are typical of some neuropsychiatric syndromes, such as Anorexia Nervosa. We investigated this hypothesis by testing 22 women with restrictive-type AN and a matched sample of 22 healthy women with a multisensory integration paradigm. Participants underwent the Mirror Box Illusion, by which we explored three different (typically convergent) elements of bodily self-awareness: (i) the subjective experiences of embodiment, (ii) hand localisation, and (iii) the skin temperature change associated with the manipulation. In people with AN, we found an altered orchestration between skin temperature changes, explicit sensations of embodiment and proprioceptive bias. These components were modulated differently by the experimental condition compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that targeted interventions to restore the convergence bodily self-awareness components might be beneficial in treating the self distortions associated with AN.
我们对身体的感知源于生理（如自主信号、对身体在空间中的感知）和心理（如主观感觉）成分之间的融合。这些成分之间的差异可能是某些神经精神综合征（如神经性厌食症）典型的身体自我感知扭曲的特征。我们通过使用多感官整合范式对22名限制型神经性厌食症女性患者和22名匹配的健康女性样本进行测试来研究这一假设。参与者接受了镜像箱错觉测试，通过该测试我们探索了身体自我感知的三个不同（通常是融合的）要素：（i）身体体验的主观感受，（ii）手部定位，以及（iii）与操作相关的皮肤温度变化。在神经性厌食症患者中，我们发现皮肤温度变化、明确的身体体验感觉和本体感觉偏差之间的协调发生了改变。与健康对照组相比，这些成分在实验条件下受到的调节不同。这些发现表明，针对性地恢复身体自我感知成分的融合的干预措施可能有助于治疗与神经性厌食症相关的自我认知扭曲。
