proprioception


Measuring upper extremity function across the adult lifespan

As we age, we generally experience a progressive decline in the ability to use our arms and hands for normal daily activities such as using cutlery to cut food, brushing our teeth and buttoning up a shirt (Shumway-Cook & Woollacott, 2016). The ability to complete everyday activities with our upper […]


Joint position sense is unaffected during persistent experimental muscle pain

Our ability to sense the position of our body, known as proprioception, is fundamental for controlling how we move and interact during daily activities (Proske and Gandevia, 2012). People who have persistent pain (i.e., pain that lasts for more than three months) find it difficult to sense the position of […]


We mislocalise landmarks on our hand when we can’t see it

Previous studies have shown that healthy individuals, when asked to locate the position of the tips and knuckles of each finger on their hand when it could not be seen, consistently misjudge the size and shape of their hand (Longo & Haggard, 2010). They overestimate the width of their hand […]


Motor Impairment Blog’s most popular posts

Over the past 4.5 years, researchers from all over the world have written non-technical summaries on their research for the Motor Impairment Blog. Consequently, the Blog contains a rich archive of information on topics such as muscle strength and weakness, falls and balance, sensation, pain, motor control, and research methods. […]


Getting to grips with body ownership

How we sense where our body is and what body parts belong to us is crucial for successful interaction with our environments (e.g. Proske & Gandevia 2012). It might seem silly to ask whether a body part belongs to you or someone else, however studies of patients and studies that […]


Skin at the back of the ankle contributes to awareness of ankle position 1

The ability to know how our limbs are positioned in space is called proprioception. This ‘sense’ is possible through information gained from individual sensors in the muscles and in the skin. In fact, skin stretch on the back or dorsal surface of the hand has been shown to create illusory […]


Calibrating skin maps: How are body metrics represented?

To accurately move there is a need for proprioception, the sense of where our limbs are in space. Although we know much about how proprioceptive signals arise in the periphery, less is known about how these signals are integrated so that they can be understood in the spatial co-ordinates of the […]


Proprioception: The body’s representation of the hand

Proprioception, our ‘sixth sense’, underlies our innate ability to localise our body parts in space and to know the forces, angles and movements at our joints (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). This ‘sense’ allows us to interact with our environment. For example, reaching for a cup of water requires knowledge of the exact spatial […]


Redesigning the Rubber Hand Illusion 6

Proprioception is the sense of the body’s own actions in space. Proprioception is disrupted in many clinical conditions such as dystonia, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. This disruption affects the ability of these individuals to produce “normal” movements. For years different paradigms have been used by researchers to examine proprioception. Dr. Lee […]