Remembering actions without proprioception

Publication date: Available online 29 November 2018

Source: Cortex

Author(s): Elena Daprati, Angela Sirigu, Daniele Nico

Abstract

It has been suggested that agency signals generated by enactment provide memories with an enduring, episodic, marker that can successively be exploited to facilitate recall. Current theories of motor awareness highlight the role of prospective and retrospective sensorimotor cues in the construction of sense of agency (SA). To explore how these signals impact on memory for actions, we studied the effect of enactment in a patient with complete loss of somatic sensation below nose level, and compared her performance to that of a group of neurologically intact individuals. A memory advantage for enacted material was clearly detectable in the control group and, interestingly, also in sensory deafferented patient GL. This novel finding shows that robust memory for actions can be obtained even in the absence of somatosensory reafferences. We hypothesize that the neural processes evoked by intention to move, together with visual experience about one's actions, provide the long-lasting agency signals that are responsible for the special quality of self-performed actions and may support autobiographical experience. Proprioceptive cues, being more time-constrained, are critical to online SA but do not necessarily partake in offline action representations.

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