Sensory attenuation in functional movement disorders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Sensory attenuation in functional movement disorders
IRAS ID
209489
Contact name
Tiago Teodoro
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St George's University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 8 months, 12 days
Research summary
Functional movement disorder is a common and disabling neurological condition characterized by abnormal movement control, which is driven by attention inappropriately focused on movement.
Although functional movement disorder has several features of voluntary movement (e.g. improvement with distraction), the patients describe it as involuntary. Therefore, one of the underlying abnormalities is thought to be an abnormal "sense of agency" for movement. The "sense of agency" corresponds to the subjective experience that a movement is produced voluntarily, according with one´s will.
Sensory attenuation is the physiological phenomenon whereby the sensory consequences of normal, voluntary movement are attenuated. This process also explains why one cannot tickle oneself, while can be tickled by others. Importantly, sensory attenuation is thought to have a key role in the experience of a normal sense of agency for movement.
Interestingly, there is a loss of sensory attenuation in FMD, and this may be related with an abnormal sense of agency in this disorder.
Quite recently, a specialized physiotherapy has been developed for FMD. It is based in movement retraining with diverted attention and manages to bring significant improvement in 60% FMD patients.
Our objective here is to investigate whether improvement of FMD with physiotherapy is associated with a recovery of "sensory attenuation".REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SW/0333
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion