Distorted time window for sensorimotor integration and preserved time window for sense of agency in patients with post-stroke limb apraxia

Limb apraxia is a cognitive-motor disorder typically resulting from left hemisphere stroke, characterized by an inability to perform skilled limb movements despite intact motor and sensory functions. Previous studies suggest that individuals with apraxia exhibit deficits in sensorimotor integration, particularly in detecting temporal discrepancies between movement and sensory feedback. However, whether these deficits affect explicit sense of agency (SoA) remains unclear. This study investigated the time window for sensorimotor integration and explicit SoA in post-stroke patients with and without apraxia. Twenty patients with left hemisphere stroke participated in a delay detection task assessing sensory-sensory and sensorimotor integration and an agency attribution task measuring explicit SoA. The results demonstrated that apraxic patients had a significantly prolonged delay detection threshold and reduced steepness in the active movement condition, indicating an altered time window for sensorimotor integration. In contrast, there were no significant differences between apraxic and non-apraxic patients in the time window for explicit SoA. These findings suggest that while apraxic patients exhibit deficits in sensorimotor integration, their explicit SoA remains preserved. This dissociation supports the notion that explicit SoA may be maintained through compensatory cognitive processes despite impairments at the sensorimotor level. Further research is needed, considering the limitations of this study, to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of SoA in apraxia.