Impaired Tactile Performance in Patients with Hand Immobilization

Recent studies have provided evidence that training, differential use and alterations in behavior cause plastic reorganizational changes in the human central nervous system. However, no report addressed the issue of how immobilization and thereby sensorimotor restriction caused tactile behavioral changes besides the previously described neural changes in the human motor system. To investigate the implication of a several-week immobilization induced by wearing a cast due to bone fractures of the hand, we tested spatial 2-point discrimination abilities of the healthy and immobilized hand during immobilization. To…