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Perceptual simultaneity between nociceptive and visual stimuli depends on their spatial congruence

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Abstract

To protect our body against physical threats, it is important to integrate the somatic and extra-somatic inputs generated by these stimuli. Temporal synchrony is an important parameter determining multisensory interaction, and the time taken by a given sensory input to reach the brain depends on the length and conduction velocity of the specific pathways through which it is transmitted. Nociceptive inputs are transmitted through very slow conducting unmyelinated C and thinly myelinated Aδ nociceptive fibers. It was previously shown that to perceive a visual stimulus and a thermo-nociceptive stimulus applied on the hand as coinciding in time, the nociceptive stimulus must precede the visual one by 76 ms for nociceptive inputs conveyed by Aδ fibers and 577 ms for inputs conveyed by C fibers. Since spatial proximity is also hypothesized to contribute to multisensory interaction, the present study investigated the effect of spatial congruence between visual and nociceptive stimuli. Participants judged the temporal order of visual and nociceptive stimuli, with the visual stimuli flashed either next to the stimulated hand or next to the opposite unstimulated hand, and with nociceptive stimuli evoking responses mediated by either Aδ or C fibers. The amount of time by which the nociceptive stimulus had to precede the visual stimulus for them to be perceived as appearing concomitantly was smaller when the visual stimulus occurred near the hand receiving the nociceptive stimulus as compared to when it occurred near the contralateral hand. This illustrates the challenge for the brain to process the synchrony between nociceptive and non-nociceptive stimuli to enable their efficient interaction to optimize defensive reaction against physical dangers.

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Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

L.F. and V. L. are supported by the Funds for Scientific Research of the French-speaking Community of Belgium (F.R.S.-FNRS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Avenue Mounier 53, boite COSY B1.53.04, 1200, Brussels, Belgium

    Louise Manfron, Lieve Filbrich, Victoria Molitor, André Mouraux & Valéry Legrain

  2. Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Louise Manfron, Lieve Filbrich, André Mouraux & Valéry Legrain

  3. INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France

    Alessandro Farnè

  4. Louvain Bionics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    André Mouraux & Valéry Legrain

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  1. Louise Manfron
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Correspondence to Valéry Legrain.

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Manfron, L., Filbrich, L., Molitor, V. et al. Perceptual simultaneity between nociceptive and visual stimuli depends on their spatial congruence. Exp Brain Res 241, 1785–1796 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-023-06637-2

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