Acute Effect of Visually Induced Kinesthetic Illusion in Patients with Stroke: A Preliminary Report

We previously reported that a kinesthetic illusion, induced by a visual stimulus using a movie video (KiNVIS), produces vivid kinesthetic feeling in a healthy subject and in a patient with stroke, even though the body is actually in a resting condition [1-3]. The subjective kinesthesia felt in the first person during KiNVIS is generally vivid and, in our experience, stronger than that experienced during mirror therapy. We reported that, during KiNVIS, corticospinal tract excitability increases, as determined by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) [1,2]. Furthermore, we showed, by functional magnetic resonance imaging, that a neural network is activated in the same brain regions during KiNVIS as is activated during actual movement execution [3]. Thus, the findings of our previous studies indicated that KiNVIS may induce a cerebral state similar to that induced by motor imagery, even though the kinesthetic perception during KiNVIS is “passively” induced. On the other hand, motor imagery describes the conscious and active psychological representation of movement. Motor imagery thus results in the activation of movement execution-related neural networks in healthy subjects [4-7].