Skip Navigation


Rheumatology Advance Access originally published online on February 8, 2006
Rheumatology 2006 45(5):645; doi:10.1093/rheumatology/kel032
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
45/5/645    most recent
kel032v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Moseley, G. L.
Right arrow Articles by Gandevia, S. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Moseley, G. L.
Right arrow Articles by Gandevia, S. C.
Related Collections
Right arrow Psychology: Measurement and Management of Pain
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re: Sensory-motor incongruence and reports of ‘pain’, by G. L. Moseley and S. C. Gandevia. Rheumatology 2005;44:1083–1085: Reply

G. L. Moseley and S. C. Gandevia1

Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics and fMRIB Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and 1 Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute and University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Correspondence to: G. L. Moseley. E-mail: lorimer.moseley{at}ndm.ox.ac.uk

SIR, Thanks for the opportunity to comment on McCabe et al.'s response to our Editorial [1] concerning their earlier paper in Rheumatology [2]. Our position was primarily one of caution that alternative explanations for both the results and the mechanisms underpinning them should not be excluded. Some of our concerns, for example selection bias, were allayed, but some remain. For example, while we appreciate that abnormal sensations stopped immediately when normal visual input was restored and that this suggests a direct relationship between the experimental condition and the abnormal sensations, the cogency of this finding would be strengthened if the onset of abnormal sensation occurred immediately too. Our contention that further work is required to determine how the experimental condition was related to the abnormal sensations still stands.

We agree, and it is well established, that many factors from across domains may impact on motor commands and their efference copies [3], and that changes in cortical reorganization (that is, the response profile of S1 neurons) cannot be solely responsible for pain. Furthermore, while S1 holds maps of the superficial and deep surfaces of the body, the understanding of the relationships between cutaneous afferent activity, proprioception and motor control is not well developed [4].

In summary, it is possible that mirror use in healthy volunteers is sufficiently incongruent to evoke abnormal sensations yet the same mirror use in patients is sufficiently congruent to alleviate these sensations. However, it seems critical to acknowledge that on the basis of current data this hypothesis can neither be accepted nor refuted.

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

References

  1. Moseley GL, Gandevia SC. Sensory motor incongruence and reports of ‘pain’. Rheumatology 2005;44:1083–5.[Free Full Text]
  2. McCabe CS, Haigh RC, Halligan PW, Blake DR. Simulating sensory-motor incongruence in healthy volunteers: implications for a cortical model of pain. Rheumatology 2005;44:509–16.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  3. Von Holst H. Relations between the central nervous system and the peripheral organs. Br J Anim Behav 1950;2:89–94.
  4. Collins DF, Refshauge KM, Todd G, Gandevia SC. Cutaneous receptors contribute to kinesthesia at the index finger, elbow, and knee. J Neurophysiol 2005;94:1699–706.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
Accepted 6 January 2006


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?



This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
45/5/645    most recent
kel032v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Moseley, G. L.
Right arrow Articles by Gandevia, S. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Moseley, G. L.
Right arrow Articles by Gandevia, S. C.
Related Collections
Right arrow Psychology: Measurement and Management of Pain
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?