Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pain Res.
Sec. Pain Mechanisms
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpain.2024.1414927

Preserved tactile distance estimation despite body representation distortions in individuals with fibromyalgia

Provisionally accepted
Tania Augière Tania Augière 1,2Morgane Metral Morgane Metral 3Martin Simoneau Martin Simoneau 1,2Catherine Mercier Catherine Mercier 1,2*
  • 1 Laval University, Quebec, Canada
  • 2 Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CIRRIS), Quebec, Canada
  • 3 Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Chambéry, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Our mental representation of our body depends on integrating various sensory modalities, such as tactile information. In tactile distance estimation (TDE) tasks, participants must estimate the distance between two tactile tips applied to their skin. This measure of tactile perception has been linked to body representation assessments. Studies in individuals with fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic widespread pain syndrome, suggest the presence of body representation distortions and tactile alterations, but TDE has never been examined in this population. Twenty participants with FM and 24 pain-free controls performed a TDE task on three Body regions (upper limb, trunk, lower limb), in which they manually estimated the interstimuli distance on a tablet. TDE error, the absolute difference between the estimation and the interstimuli distance, was not different between the Groups, on any Body region. Drawings of their body as they felt it revealed clear and frequent distortions of body representation in the group with FM, compared to negligible perturbations in controls. This contrast between distorted body drawings and unaltered TDE suggests a preserved integration of tactile information but an altered integration of this information with other sensory modalities to generate a precise and accurate body representation. Future research should investigate the relative contribution of each sensory information and prior knowledge about the body in body representation in individuals with FM to shed light on the observed distortions.

    Keywords: Chronic Pain, body schema, body image, multisensory integration, Tactile perception, Sensory weighting

    Received: 09 Apr 2024; Accepted: 09 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Augière, Metral, Simoneau and Mercier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Catherine Mercier, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CIRRIS), Quebec, G1M 2S8, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.