Impaired sense of agency in functional movement disorders: An fMRI study

PLoS One. 2017 Apr 27;12(4):e0172502. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172502. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

The sense of agency (SA) is an established framework that refers to our ability to exert and perceive control over our own actions. Having an intact SA provides the basis for the human perception of voluntariness, while impairments in SA are hypothesized to lead to the perception of movements being involuntary that may be seen many neurological or psychiatric disorders. Individuals with functional movement disorders (FMD) experience a lack of control over their movements, yet these movements appear voluntary by physiology. We used fMRI to explore whether alterations in SA in an FMD population could explain why these patients feel their movements are involuntary. We compared the FMD group to a control group that was previously collected using an ecologically valid, virtual-reality movement paradigm that could modulate SA. We found selective dysfunction of the SA neural network, whereby the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and pre-supplementary motor area on the right did not respond differentially to the loss of movement control. These findings provide some of the strongest evidence to date for a physiological basis underlying these disabling disorders.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Awareness*
  • Behavior
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Female
  • Fingers / physiopathology
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Movement Disorders / diagnostic imaging
  • Movement Disorders / physiopathology*
  • Movement Disorders / psychology*
  • Movement*
  • Volition*

Grants and funding

Funded by the Intramural program of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. No relevant conflicts of interest are present.