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BackgroundUpper limb proprioceptive impairments are common after stroke and affect daily function. Recent work has shown that stroke survivors have difficulty using visual information to improve proprioception. It is unclear how eye movements are impacted to guide action of the arm after stroke. Here, we aimed to understand how upper limb proprioceptive impairments impact eye movements in individuals with stroke. MethodsControl (N = 20) and stroke participants (N = 20) performed a proprioceptive matching task with upper limb and eye movements. A KINARM exoskeleton with eye tracking was used to assess limb and eye kinematics. The upper limb was passively moved by the robot and participants matched the location with either an arm or eye movement. Accuracy was measured as the difference between passive robot movement location and active limb matching (Hand-End Point Error) or active eye movement matching (Eye-End Point Error). ResultsWe found that individuals with stroke had significantly larger Hand (2.1×) and Eye-End Point (1.5×) Errors compared to controls. Further, we found that proprioceptive errors of the hand and eye were highly correlated in stroke participants ( r = .67, P = .001), a relationship not observed for controls. ConclusionsEye movement accuracy declined as a function of proprioceptive impairment of the more-affected limb, which was used as a proprioceptive reference. The inability to use proprioceptive information of the arm to coordinate eye movements suggests that disordered proprioception impacts integration of sensory information across different modalities. These results have important implications for how vision is used to actively guide limb movement during rehabilitation.
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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Impaired proprioception and magnified scaling of proprioceptive error responses in chronic stroke
Abstract BackgroundPrevious work has shown that ~ 50–60% of individuals have impaired proprioception after stroke. Typically, these studies have identified proprioceptive impairments using a narrow range of reference movements. While this has been important for identifying the prevalence of proprioceptive impairments, it is unknown whether these error responses are consistent for a broad range of reference movements. The objective of this study was to characterize proprioceptive accuracy as function of movement speed and distance in stroke. MethodsStroke (N = 25) and controls (N = 21) completed a robotic proprioception test that varied movement speed and distance. Participants mirror-matched various reference movement speeds (0.1–0.4 m/s) and distances (7.5–17.5 cm). Spatial and temporal parameters known to quantify proprioception were used to determine group differences in proprioceptive accuracy, and whether patterns of proprioceptive error were consistent across testing conditions within and across groups. ResultsOverall, we found that stroke participants had impaired proprioception compared to controls. Proprioceptive errors related to tested reference movement scaled similarly to controls, but some errors showed amplified scaling (e.g., significantly overshooting or undershooting reference speed). Further, interaction effects were present for speed and distance reference combinations at the extremes of the testing distribution. ConclusionsWe found that stroke participants have impaired proprioception and that some proprioceptive errors were dependent on characteristics of the movement (e.g., speed) and that reference movements at the extremes of the testing distribution resulted in significantly larger proprioceptive errors for the stroke group. Understanding how sensory information is utilized across a broad spectrum of movements after stroke may aid design of rehabilitation programs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1934650
- PAR ID:
- 10577839
- Publisher / Repository:
- Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation
- Volume:
- 21
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1743-0003
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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