Monica Biggio | Università degli Studi di Genova (original) (raw)

Papers by Monica Biggio

Clinical Neurophysiology, Apr 1, 2020

Amputees who experience a phantom limb sometimes report that their phantom has certain sensory pr... more Amputees who experience a phantom limb sometimes report that their phantom has certain sensory properties, like touch and pain, as well as kinesthetic properties, brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

This study aimed to investigate the role of sensorimotor expertise in evaluating relative weight ... more This study aimed to investigate the role of sensorimotor expertise in evaluating relative weight of a lifted object during the observation of a sport-specific gesture, namely the deadlift. Fifty-six participants, assigned to three groups according to their experience in weight lifting, powerlifters, CrossFit® practitioners and naïve participants (controls), performed a perceptual weight judgments task. Participants observed videos showing a powerlifter executing a deadlift at the 80%, 90% and 100% of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) and answered a question about the weight of the lifted object. Participants' response accuracy and variability were evaluated. Findings showed that powerlifters were more accurate than controls. No differences appeared between powerlifter and CrossFit® practitioners, and between CrossFit® practitioners and controls. Response variability was similar in the three groups. These findings suggest that a fine sensorimotor expertise specific for the observed gest...

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

The ability to predict the weight of objects is important for skilled and dexterous manipulation ... more The ability to predict the weight of objects is important for skilled and dexterous manipulation during activities of daily living. The observation of other people moving objects might represent an important source of information on object features and help to plan the correct motor interaction with it. In aging, an impaired ability to evaluate the object weight might have negative drawbacks in term of the safety of the person. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of aging in the ability to discriminate the object weight during action observation. Twenty older adults (Old) and twenty young subjects (Young) performed a two-interval forced-choice task consisting in the observation of a couple of videos showing an actor moving a box of different weights. The observer had to evaluate which video showed the heavier box. Handgrip strength was acquired from all subjects. Sensitivity analysis was performed and psychometric curves were built on participants’ responses. The resul...

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Time-of-day is rarely considered during experimental protocols investigating motor behavior and n... more Time-of-day is rarely considered during experimental protocols investigating motor behavior and neural activity. The goal of this work was to investigate differences in functional cortical connectivity at rest linked to the time of the day using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Since resting-state brain is shown to be a succession of cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and motor processes that can be both conscious and nonconscious, we studied self-generated thought with the goal to help in understanding brain dynamics. We used the New-York Cognition Questionnaire (NYC-Q) for retrospective introspection to explore a possible relationship between the ongoing experience and the brain at resting-state to gather information about the overall ongoing experience of subjects. We found differences in resting-state functional connectivity in the inter-hemispheric parietal cortices, which was significantly greater in the morning than in the afternoon, whilst the intra-hemispheric ...

Scientific Reports

Brainstem dysfunctions are very common in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and are a critical predictive f... more Brainstem dysfunctions are very common in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and are a critical predictive factor for future disability. Brainstem functionality can be explored with blink reflexes, subcortical responses consisting in a blink following a peripheral stimulation. Some reflexes are already employed in clinical practice, such as Trigeminal Blink Reflex (TBR). Here we propose for the first time in MS the exploration of Hand Blink Reflex (HBR), which size is modulated by the proximity of the stimulated hand to the face, reflecting the extension of the peripersonal space. The aim of this work is to test whether Machine Learning (ML) techniques could be used in combination with neurophysiological measurements such as TBR and HBR to improve their clinical information and potentially favour the early detection of brainstem dysfunctionality. HBR and TBR were recorded from a group of People with MS (PwMS) with Relapsing-Remitting form and from a healthy control group. Two AdaBoost classifi...

Brain Sciences

Social distancing norms have been promoted after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we tested i... more Social distancing norms have been promoted after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we tested interpersonal space (IPS) in 107 subjects through a reaching-comfort distance estimation task. In the main experiment, subjects had to estimate the comfort and reach space between an avatar wearing or not wearing a face mask. We found that IPS was greater between avatars not wearing a mask with respect to stimuli with the mask on, while reaching space was not modulated. IPS increment in the NoMask condition with respect to the Mask condition correlated with anxiety traits, as shown with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, rather than with transient aspects related to the pandemic situation. In the control experiment, the avatars with a mask were removed to further explore the conditioning effect provided by the presence of the facial protection in the main experiment. We found a significant difference comparing this condition with the same condition of the main experiment, namely, the dist...

doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00228 Spontaneous movement tempo can be influenced by combining action ob... more doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00228 Spontaneous movement tempo can be influenced by combining action observation and somatosensory stimulation

Scientific Reports, 2021

Circle-line drawing paradigm is used to study bimanual coupling. In the standard paradigm, subjec... more Circle-line drawing paradigm is used to study bimanual coupling. In the standard paradigm, subjects are asked to draw circles with one hand and lines with the other hand; the influence of the concomitant tasks results in two “elliptical” figures. Here we tested whether proprioceptive information evoked by muscle vibration inducing a proprioceptive illusion (PI) of movement at central level, was able to affect the contralateral hand drawing circles or lines. A multisite 80 Hz-muscle vibration paradigm was used to induce the illusion of circle- and line-drawing on the right hand of 15 healthy participants. During muscle vibration, subjects had to draw a congruent or an incongruent figure with the left hand. The ovalization induced by PI was compared with Real and Motor Imagery conditions, which already have proved to induce bimanual coupling. We showed that the ovalization of a perceived circle over a line drawing during PI was comparable to that observed in Real and Motor Imagery con...

This paper investigates the notion of visual load, an estimate for a lexical item’s efficacy in a... more This paper investigates the notion of visual load, an estimate for a lexical item’s efficacy in activating mental images associated with the concept it refers to. We elaborate on the centrality of this notion which is deeply and variously connected to lexical processing. A computational model of the visual load is introduced that builds on few low level features and on the dependency structure of sentences. The system implementing the proposed model has been experimentally assessed and shown to reasonably approximate human response.

Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2021

Professional athletes, compared to beginners, can better predict the outcome of sport-related obs... more Professional athletes, compared to beginners, can better predict the outcome of sport-related observed movements, via mirror motor-system modulations (motor resonance). Furthermore, motor-system inhibition occurs when observing other people experiencing pain (pain resonance). Here we investigated whether observing sportrelated actions, whose outcome can lead or not to a painful experience, results into different prediction performances depending on expertise and history of injury. Experiment 1 revealed that professional skiers, relative to beginners, show greater prediction accuracy but slower reaction times. Experiment 2 revealed that, among professional skiers, those previously injured, compared to uninjured ones, are slower in predicting the outcome of the observed action when it actually leads to an injury. We hypothesize that such results could be explained by an automatic activation of both motor and pain resonance mechanisms in the onlooker, inducing a sort of experience-dependant freezing response while observing actions likely leading to an injury.

Neuroscience, 2021

Specific neural mechanisms operate at corticospinal levels during eccentric and concentric contra... more Specific neural mechanisms operate at corticospinal levels during eccentric and concentric contractions. Here, we investigated the difference in corticospinal excitability (CSE) when preparing these two types of contraction. In this study we enrolled 16 healthy participants. They were asked to perform an instructed-delay reaction time task involving a concentric or an eccentric contraction of the right first dorsal interosseus muscle, as a response to a proprioceptive cue (Go signal) presented 1s after a warning signal. We tested corticospinal excitability at different time points ranging from 300ms before up to 40ms after a Go signal. CSE increased 300-150ms before the Go signal for both contractions. Interestingly, significant changes in CSE in the time interval around the Go signal (from -150ms to +40ms) were only revealed in eccentric contraction. We observed a significant decrease in excitability immediately before the Go cue (Pre_50) and a significant increase 40ms after it (Post_40) with respect to the MEPs recorded at Pre_150. Finally, CSE in eccentric contraction was lower before the Go cue (Pre_50) and greater after it (Post_40) compared to the concentric contraction. A similar result was also found in NoMov paradigm, used to disentangle the effects induced by movement preparation from those induced by the movement preparation linked to the proprioceptive cue. We could conclude that different neural mechanisms observed during concentric and eccentric contractions are mirrored with a different time-specific modulation of CSE in the preparatory phase to the movement.

European Journal of Neuroscience, 2021

Action observation combined with proprioceptive stimulation able to induce a kinesthetic illusion... more Action observation combined with proprioceptive stimulation able to induce a kinesthetic illusion of movement (AO‐KI) was shown to elicit a plastic increase in primary motor cortex (M1) excitability, with promising applications in rehabilitative interventions. Nevertheless, the known individual variability in response to combined stimulation protocols limits its application. The aim of this study was to examine whether a relationship exists between changes in M1 excitability during AO‐KI and the long‐lasting changes in M1 induced by AO‐KI. Fifteen volunteers received a conditioning protocol consisting in watching a video showing a thumb‐opposition movement and a simultaneous proprioceptive stimulation that evoked an illusory kinesthetic experience of their thumbs closing. M1 excitability was evaluated by means of single‐pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation before, DURING the conditioning protocol, and up to 60 min AFTER it was administered. M1 excitability significantly increased during AO‐KI with respect to a rest condition. Furthermore, AO‐KI induced a long‐lasting increase in M1 excitability up to 60 min after administration. Finally, a significant positive correlation appeared between M1 excitability changes during and after AO‐KI; that is, participants who were more responsive during AO‐KI showed greater motor cortical activity changes after it. These findings suggest that M1 response during AO‐KI can be considered a neurophysiological marker of individual responsiveness to the combined stimulation since it was predictive of its efficacy in inducing long‐lasting M1 increase excitability. This information would allow knowing in advance whether an individual will be a responder to AO‐KI.

Neuropsychologia, 2019

Lexical competence includes both the ability to relate words to the external world as accessed th... more Lexical competence includes both the ability to relate words to the external world as accessed through (mainly) visual perception (referential competence) and the ability to relate words to other words (inferential competence). We investigated the role of visual imagery in lexical inferential competence by using an auditory version of an inferential naming-to-definition task, in which visual imageability of both definitions and target words was manipulated. A visual imageability-related brain activity (bilateral posterior-parietal lobe and ventrotemporal cortex, including fusiform gyrus) was found during a "pure" inferential performance. The definition effect in high vs. low imageability contrast suggests that a visual-imagery strategy is spontaneously activated during the retrieval of a word from a high imageable definition; such an effect appears to be independent of whether the target word is high or low imageable. This contributes to the understanding of the neural correlates of semantic processing and the differential role of spontaneous visual imagery, depending on the semantic properties of the processed stimuli.

The Journal of Physiology, 2019

 The combination of action observation (AO) and a peripheral nerve stimulation has been shown t... more  The combination of action observation (AO) and a peripheral nerve stimulation has been shown to induce plasticity in the primary motor cortex (M1). However, using peripheral nerve stimulation little is known about the specificity of the sensory inputs.  The current study, using muscle tendon vibration to stimulate muscle spindles and transcranial magnetic stimulation to assess M1 excitability, investigated whether a proprioceptive stimulation leading to a kinesthetic illusion of movement (KI) was able to evoke M1 plasticity when combined with AO.  M1 excitability increased immediately and up to 60min after AO-KI stimulation as function of the vividness of the perceived illusion, and only when the movement directions of AO and KI were congruent.  Tactile stimulation coupled with AO and KI alone were not sufficient to induce M1 plasticity.  This methodology might be proposed to subjects during a period of immobilization to promote M1 activity without requiring any voluntary movement.