Reduced likelihood of the Poggendorff illusion in cerebellar strokes: a clinical and neuroimaging study

Abstract

This study aimed to test our hypothesis that the cerebellum plays an important role in the generation of the optical-geometric illusion known as the Poggendorff illusion, the mechanism of which has been explained by accumulated experience with natural scene geometry. Seventy-nine participants, comprising 28 patients with isolated cerebellar stroke, 27 patients with isolated cerebral stroke, and 24 healthy controls, performed Poggendorff illusion tasks and two different control tasks. We also investigated core brain regions underpinning changes in the experience of the illusion effect using multivariate lesion-symptom mapping. Our results indicate that patients with isolated cerebellar stroke were significantly less likely to experience the Poggendorff illusion effect than patients with isolated cerebral stroke or healthy controls (74.6%, 90.5%, and 89.8%, respectively; F(2,76) = 6.675, p = 0.002). However, there were no intergroup differences in the control tasks. Lesion-symptom mapping analysis revealed that the brain lesions associated with reduced frequency of the Poggendorff illusion effect were mainly centered on the right posteromedial cerebellar region, including the right lobules VI, VII, VIII, IX, and Crus II. Our findings demonstrated, for the first time, that patients with cerebellar damage were significantly less likely to experience the Poggendorff illusion effect, and that right posteromedial cerebellar lesions played an important role in this effect. These results provide new insight into alterations of a geometric illusion effect in patients with cerebellar disorders, and pave the way for future clinical use of the illusion task to detect cerebellar abnormalities.