Multisensory reweighting for kinesthesia in older adults

Marie Chancel (1, 2) , Caroline Landelle (1) , Caroline Blanchard (1) , Olivier Felician (3, 4) , Michel Guerraz (2) , Anne Kavounoudias (1)

1 LNIA - Laboratoire de Neurosciences intégratives et adaptatives
2 LPNC - Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition
3 INS - Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes
4 Service de neurologie et de neuropsychologie

To perceive self-hand movements, the central nervous system (CNS) relies on multiple sensory information mainly derived from vision, touch, and muscle proprioception. Using psychophysical approaches, this study investigated how and to what extent the CNS relies on these sensory systems to build kinesthetic percepts when they all decline such as when aging. Illusory movement perceptions were induced by stimulating these three sensory modalities either separately or concomitantly. The perceptual responses reported by 19 healthy elderly adults (60-82 yrs) were compared to those of 12 young adults. Results suggest that reliance on sensory inputs for kinesthetic purposes is profoundly reshaped as early as 60 years old. Older people rely more on visual and tactile afferents for perceiving self-hand movements than younger adults. This could be due to a relative greater muscle proprioception impairment.

Mots clés: Movement perception; Illusions; Muscle proprioception; Vision; Touch

Domaines: Psychologie et comportements

Marie Chancel, Caroline Landelle, Caroline Blanchard, Olivier Felician, Michel Guerraz, et al.. Multisensory reweighting for kinesthesia in older adults. International workshop on Aging in the Neuro-musculo-skeletal System, Mar 2016, MARSEILLE, France. ⟨hal-01433037⟩