Abstract

The use of biological motion (BM) stimuli (point-light walkers PLW) may be a novel alternative to improve the clinical impact of Action Observation treatments in Parkinson’s Disease, by directing the patient’s attentional focus on gait kinematics. However, the recognition of biological motion in Parkinson’s patients has thus far been controversial. To evaluate the clinical feasibility of using BM stimuli in Action Observation treatments, we aimed at investigating whether Parkinson’s patients in the ON-state condition can identify and use gender-specific cues conveyed by the body structure and by the kinematics of gait of a PLW. 30 Parkinson’s patients and 30 healthy elderly observers were tested in a gender identification task with PLW. Parkinson’s patients were able to correctly identify the gender of PLW; no differences were found between the two groups of observers. While for both groups, the gender identification task was easier when it required a judgment on a healthy PLW. Lastly, we found that females were more sensitive than males in our identification task. Our study shows that Parkinson’s patients in the ON-state condition are able to extract subtle structural and kinematic characteristics from biological motion stimuli, which is favorable to the use of BM in Action Observation treatments.

摘要

使用生物运动 (BM) 刺激（点光步行者 PLW）可能是一种新的替代方法，可以通过将患者的注意力集中在步态运动学上来改善帕金森氏病中动作观察治疗的临床影响。然而，迄今为止，对帕金森病患者生物运动的认识一直存在争议。为了评估在动作观察治疗中使用 BM 刺激的临床可行性，我们旨在调查处于 ON 状态的帕金森氏症患者是否可以识别和使用由身体结构和 PLW 步态运动学传达的性别特定线索。30 名帕金森病患者和 30 名健康老年观察员接受了 PLW 性别识别任务的测试。帕金森病患者能够正确识别艾滋病病毒感染者的性别；两组观察员之间没有发现差异。而对于这两个群体来说，当需要对健康的 PLW 进行判断时，性别识别任务就更容易了。最后，我们发现女性在我们的识别任务中比男性更敏感。我们的研究表明，处于 ON 状态的帕金森病患者能够从生物运动刺激中提取细微的结构和运动学特征，这有利于 BM 在动作观察治疗中的使用。