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A World Without Movement: What is Akinetopsia?
Kinematic perception is a phenomenon we encounter regularly in our daily lives, from chasing a passing bus to watching trees recede quickly outside your window. So it's bound to be confusing when we imagine a seemingly peaceful world suddenly transformed into a series of static "pictures." This is movement agnosia, also known as Akinetopsia, a rare neuropathological condition. It prevents patients from correctly sensing movement, which in turn affects their quality of life.
Motor agnosia is a neuropsychological condition usually caused by damage to the V5 region of the brain. This area is considered central to motion processing.
Basics of motion perception
The formation of motion perception relies on the integration of information from visual, vestibular and proprioceptive receptors. While this process may seem effortless to most people, it has been a difficult subject from a computational perspective and is still being explored in the field of neural processing today. For example, many disciplines, such as psychology, neuroscience, engineering, and computer science, have conducted research on this.
Motor agnosia: causes and effects
In daily life, patients may see the world like an old movie, which can only be presented in static frames, making it difficult to capture movement. This is because damage to the V5 area causes their visual system to lose the ability to integrate movement information. Patients who lack kinesthetic perception may be unable to recognize traffic situations and even experience difficulty interacting with others.
Research shows that the visual experience of patients with motor agnosia is as if there is no continuous transition between still frames, leading to inconvenience and danger in life.
Types of motion perception
Motion perception can be divided into the first stage and the second stage. The first stage of motion perception focuses on changes in state, such as the sensation of motion reflected through a set of alternating points. This phenomenon manifests itself experimentally as beta motion, which is based on the opening and closing of points, and phi, which is an illusion created when distance is optimal—it appears that an object is moving between points.
The phi phenomenon is often used to test "pure motion detection," a theory that states that the formation of motion perception in the visual system is susceptible to multiple types of visual signals.
The connection between exercise and the brain
How the brain integrates motion signals to form global motion perception remains an open question. When local motion signals are detected, the brain needs to integrate and transform them into a 3D perception of the environment. A challenge that patients with different conditions may encounter in this process, such as those with motor agnosia, is difficulty in perceiving overall motion.
Future research directions
Current research on motor agnosia mainly focuses on its causes and brain processing mechanisms. As technology advances, scientists are exploring the possibility of improving motion perception deficits through behavioral therapy or neuromodulation techniques.
Future research may reveal more about the mechanisms of how to restore or replace this loss of perception and lead to innovative treatment options.
In the world of kinesthesia, life becomes a static picture as all movement is slowed, stopped, and lost. Does this make you think about how important movement and movement are in our daily lives?
