Placebo-Induced Somatic Sensations: A Multi-Modal Study of Three Different Placebo Interventions

Somatic sensations induced by placebos are a frequent phenomenon whose etiology and clinical relevance remains unknown. In this study, we have evaluated the quantitative, qualitative, spatial, and temporal characteristics of placebo-induced somatic sensations in response to three different placebo interventions: (1) placebo irritant solution, (2) placebo laser stimulation, and (3) imagined laser stimulation. The quality and intensity of evoked sensations were assessed using the McGill pain questionnaire and visual analogue scales (VAS), while subjects’ sensation drawings processed by a geographic information system (GIS) were used to measure their spatial characteristics. We found that all three interventions are capable of producing robust sensations most frequently described as “tingling” and “warm” that can reach consider-able spatial extent (≤ 205mm^²) and intensity (≤ 80/100 VAS). Sensations from placebo stimulation were often referred to areas remote from the stimulation site and exhibit considerable similarity with referred pain. Interestingly, there was considerable similarity of qualitative features as well as spatial patterns across subjects and placebos. However, placebo laser stimulation elicited significantly stronger and more widespread sensations than placebo irritant solution. Finally, novelty seeking, a character trait assessed by the Temperament and Character Inventory and associated with basal dopaminergic activity, was less pronounced in subjects susceptible to report placebo-induced sensations. Our study has shown that placebo-induced sensations are frequent and can reach considerable intensity and extent. As multiple somatosensory subsystems are involved despite the lack of peripheral stimulus, we propose a central etiology for this phenomenon.     

The Anterior Insula Tracks Behavioral Entropy during an Interpersonal Competitive Game

In competitive situations, individuals need to adjust their behavioral strategy dynamically in response to their opponent’s behavior. In the present study, we investigated the neural basis of how individuals adjust their strategy during a simple, competitive game of matching pennies. We used entropy as a behavioral index of randomness in decision-making, because maximizing randomness is thought to be an optimal strategy in the game, according to game theory. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjects played matching pennies with either a human or computer opponent in each block, although in reality they played the game with the same computer algorithm under both conditions. The winning rate of each block was also manipulated. Both the opponent (human or computer), and the winning rate, independently affected subjects’ block-wise entropy during the game. The fMRI results revealed that activity in the bilateral anterior insula was positively correlated with subjects’ (not opponent’s) behavioral entropy during the game, which indicates that during an interpersonal competitive game, the anterior insula tracked how uncertain subjects’ behavior was, rather than how uncertain subjects felt their opponent''s behavior was. Our results suggest that intuitive or automatic processes based on somatic markers may be a key to optimally adjusting behavioral strategies in competitive situations.     

Agency Modulates the Lateral and Medial Prefrontal Cortex Responses in Belief-Based Decision Making

Many real-life decisions in complex and changing environments are guided by the decision maker’s beliefs, such as her perceived control over decision outcomes (i.e., agency), leading to phenomena like the “illusion of control”. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the “agency” effect on belief-based decisions are not well understood. Using functional imaging and a card guessing game, we revealed that the agency manipulation (i.e., either asking the subjects (SG) or the computer (CG) to guess the location of the winning card) not only affected the size of subjects’ bets, but also their “world model” regarding the outcome dependency. Functional imaging results revealed that the decision-related activation in the lateral and medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) was significantly modulated by agency and previous outcome. Specifically, these PFC regions showed stronger activation when subjects made decisions after losses than after wins under the CG condition, but the pattern was reversed under the SG condition. Furthermore, subjects with high external attribution of negative events were more affected by agency at the behavioral and neural levels. These results suggest that the prefrontal decision-making system can be modulated by abstract beliefs, and are thus vulnerable to factors such as false agency and attribution.     

Large Scale Brain Functional Networks Support Sentence Comprehension: Evidence from Both Explicit and Implicit Language Tasks

Previous studies have indicated that sentences are comprehended via widespread brain regions in the fronto-temporo-parietal network in explicit language tasks (e.g., semantic congruency judgment tasks), and through restricted temporal or frontal regions in implicit language tasks (e.g., font size judgment tasks). This discrepancy has raised questions regarding a common network for sentence comprehension that acts regardless of task effect and whether different tasks modulate network properties. To this end, we constructed brain functional networks based on 27 subjects’ fMRI data that was collected while performing explicit and implicit language tasks. We found that network properties and network hubs corresponding to the implicit language task were similar to those associated with the explicit language task. We also found common hubs in occipital, temporal and frontal regions in both tasks. Compared with the implicit language task, the explicit language task resulted in greater global efficiency and increased integrated betweenness centrality of the left inferior frontal gyrus, which is a key region related to sentence comprehension. These results suggest that brain functional networks support both explicit and implicit sentence comprehension; in addition, these two types of language tasks may modulate the properties of brain functional networks.     

Beauty Matters: Social Preferences in a Three-Person Ultimatum Game

Preference for beauty is human nature, as previous behavior studies have supported the notion of “beauty premium” in which attractive people were more easily to get promoted and receive higher salaries. In the present study, 29 males were recruited to participate in a three-person ultimatum game (UG) including a proposer, a responder and a powerless third player. Each subject, playing as the responder, had to decide whether to accept an offer from the allocator both for himself and a female third person. We aimed to elucidate how the facial attractiveness of the female subject affected the male subjects’ fairness and decision-making in social exchanges. Frontal feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to four offers in an attractive-face condition revealed no significant differences between offers; however, when the companion was an unattractive female, an “unfair/fair” offer, which assigned a lower share to the responder and a fair share to the third player, elicited the largest FRN. Furthermore, when the third player was offered the smallest amount (“fair/unfair” offer), a larger FRN was generated in an attractive-face condition than unattractive-face condition. In the “unfair/fair” offer condition in which subjects received a smaller allocation than the third person, the beauty of their female counterparts attenuated subjects’ aversion to inequality, resulting in a less negative FRN in the frontal region and an increased acceptance ratio. However, the influence of the third player’s facial attractiveness only affected the early evaluation stage: late P300 was found to be immune to the “beauty premium”. Under the two face conditions, P300 was smallest following an “unfair/fair” offer, whereas the amplitudes in the other three offer conditions exhibited no significant differences. In addition, the differentiated neural features of processing facial attractiveness were also determined and indexed by four event-related potentials (ERP) components: N170, frontal N1, N2 and late positive potentials (LPPs).     

Can Force Feedback and Science Learning Enhance the Effectiveness of Neuro-Rehabilitation? An Experimental Study on Using a Low-Cost 3D Joystick and a Virtual Visit to a Zoo

In this paper, we demonstrate that healthy adults respond differentially to the administration of force feedback and the presentation of scientific content in a virtual environment, where they interact with a low-cost haptic device. Subjects are tasked with controlling the movement of a cursor on a predefined trajectory that is superimposed on a map of New York City’s Bronx Zoo. The system is characterized in terms of a suite of objective indices quantifying the subjects’ dexterity in planning and generating the multijoint visuomotor tasks. We find that force feedback regulates the smoothness, accuracy, and duration of the subject’s movement, whereby converging or diverging force fields influence the range of variations of the hand speed. Finally, our findings provide preliminary evidence that using educational content increases subjects’ satisfaction. Improving the level of interest through the inclusion of learning elements can increase the time spent performing rehabilitation tasks and promote learning in a new context.     

The Role of Informative and Ambiguous Feedback in Avoidance Behavior: Empirical and Computational Findings

Avoidance behavior is a critical component of many psychiatric disorders, and as such, it is important to understand how avoidance behavior arises, and whether it can be modified. In this study, we used empirical and computational methods to assess the role of informational feedback and ambiguous outcome in avoidance behavior. We adapted a computer-based probabilistic classification learning task, which includes positive, negative and no-feedback outcomes; the latter outcome is ambiguous as it might signal either a successful outcome (missed punishment) or a failure (missed reward). Prior work with this task suggested that most healthy subjects viewed the no-feedback outcome as strongly positive. Interestingly, in a later version of the classification task, when healthy subjects were allowed to opt out of (i.e. avoid) responding, some subjects (“avoiders”) reliably avoided trials where there was a risk of punishment, but other subjects (“non-avoiders”) never made any avoidance responses at all. One possible interpretation is that the “non-avoiders” valued the no-feedback outcome so positively on punishment-based trials that they had little incentive to avoid. Another possible interpretation is that the outcome of an avoided trial is unspecified and that lack of information is aversive, decreasing subjects’ tendency to avoid. To examine these ideas, we here tested healthy young adults on versions of the task where avoidance responses either did or did not generate informational feedback about the optimal response. Results showed that provision of informational feedback decreased avoidance responses and also decreased categorization performance, without significantly affecting the percentage of subjects classified as “avoiders.” To better understand these results, we used a modified Q-learning model to fit individual subject data. Simulation results suggest that subjects in the feedback condition adjusted their behavior faster following better-than-expected outcomes, compared to subjects in the no-feedback condition. Additionally, in both task conditions, “avoiders” adjusted their behavior faster following worse-than-expected outcomes, and treated the ambiguous no-feedback outcome as less rewarding, compared to non-avoiders. Together, results shed light on the important role of ambiguous and informative feedback in avoidance behavior.     

Temporal Characteristics of Online Syntactic Sentence Planning: An Event-Related Potential Study

During sentence production, linguistic information (semantics, syntax, phonology) of words is retrieved and assembled into a meaningful utterance. There is still debate on how we assemble single words into more complex syntactic structures such as noun phrases or sentences. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the time course of syntactic planning. Thirty-three volunteers described visually animated scenes using naming formats varying in syntactic complexity: from simple words (‘W’, e.g., “triangle”, “red”, “square”, “green”, “to fly towards”), to noun phrases (‘NP’, e.g., “the red triangle”, “the green square”, “to fly towards”), to a sentence (‘S’, e.g., “The red triangle flies towards the green square.”). Behaviourally, we observed an increase in errors and corrections with increasing syntactic complexity, indicating a successful experimental manipulation. In the ERPs following scene onset, syntactic complexity variations were found in a P300-like component (‘S’/‘NP’>‘W’) and a fronto-central negativity (linear increase with syntactic complexity). In addition, the scene could display two actions - unpredictable for the participant, as the disambiguation occurred only later in the animation. Time-locked to the moment of visual disambiguation of the action and thus the verb, we observed another P300 component (‘S’>‘NP’/‘W’). The data show for the first time evidence of sensitivity to syntactic planning within the P300 time window, time-locked to visual events critical of syntactic planning. We discuss the findings in the light of current syntactic planning views.     

Assessing the Perception of Trunk Movements in Military Personnel with Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain Using a Virtual Mirror

Chronic pain, including chronic non-specific low back pain (CNSLBP), is often associated with body perception disturbances, but these have generally been assessed under static conditions. The objective of this study was to use a “virtual mirror” that scaled visual movement feedback to assess body perception during active movement in military personnel with CNSLBP (n = 15) as compared to military healthy control subjects (n = 15). Subjects performed a trunk flexion task while sitting and standing in front of a large screen displaying a full-body virtual mirror-image (avatar) in real-time. Avatar movements were scaled to appear greater, identical, or smaller than the subjects’ actual movements. A total of 126 trials with 11 different scaling factors were pseudo-randomized across 6 blocks. After each trial, subjects had to decide whether the avatar’s movements were “greater” or “smaller” than their own movements. Based on this two-alternative forced choice paradigm, a psychophysical curve was fitted to the data for each subject, and several metrics were derived from this curve. In addition, task adherence (kinematics) and virtual reality immersion were assessed. Groups displayed a similar ability to discriminate between different levels of movement scaling. Still, subjects with CNSLBP showed an abnormal performance and tended to overestimate their own movements (a right-shifted psychophysical curve). Subjects showed adequate task adherence, and on average virtual reality immersion was reported to be very good. In conclusion, these results extend previous work in patients with CNSLBP, and denote an important relationship between body perception, movement and pain. As such, the assessment of body perception during active movement can offer new avenues for understanding and managing body perception disturbances and abnormal movement patterns in patients with pain.     

Decision-Making under Ambiguity Is Modulated by Visual Framing,but Not by Motor vs. Non-Motor Context. Experiments and an Information-Theoretic Ambiguity Model

A number of recent studies have investigated differences in human choice behavior depending on task framing, especially comparing economic decision-making to choice behavior in equivalent sensorimotor tasks. Here we test whether decision-making under ambiguity exhibits effects of task framing in motor vs. non-motor context. In a first experiment, we designed an experience-based urn task with varying degrees of ambiguity and an equivalent motor task where subjects chose between hitting partially occluded targets. In a second experiment, we controlled for the different stimulus design in the two tasks by introducing an urn task with bar stimuli matching those in the motor task. We found ambiguity attitudes to be mainly influenced by stimulus design. In particular, we found that the same subjects tended to be ambiguity-preferring when choosing between ambiguous bar stimuli, but ambiguity-avoiding when choosing between ambiguous urn sample stimuli. In contrast, subjects’ choice pattern was not affected by changing from a target hitting task to a non-motor context when keeping the stimulus design unchanged. In both tasks subjects’ choice behavior was continuously modulated by the degree of ambiguity. We show that this modulation of behavior can be explained by an information-theoretic model of ambiguity that generalizes Bayes-optimal decision-making by combining Bayesian inference with robust decision-making under model uncertainty. Our results demonstrate the benefits of information-theoretic models of decision-making under varying degrees of ambiguity for a given context, but also demonstrate the sensitivity of ambiguity attitudes across contexts that theoretical models struggle to explain.     

An Internet-Based Real-Time Audiovisual Link for Dual MEG Recordings

Hyperscanning

Most neuroimaging studies of human social cognition have focused on brain activity of single subjects. More recently, “two-person neuroimaging” has been introduced, with simultaneous recordings of brain signals from two subjects involved in social interaction. These simultaneous “hyperscanning” recordings have already been carried out with a spectrum of neuroimaging modalities, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Dual MEG Setup

We have recently developed a setup for simultaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings of two subjects that communicate in real time over an audio link between two geographically separated MEG laboratories. Here we present an extended version of the setup, where we have added a video connection and replaced the telephone-landline-based link with an Internet connection. Our setup enabled transmission of video and audio streams between the sites with a one-way communication latency of about 130 ms. Our software that allows reproducing the setup is publicly available.

Validation

We demonstrate that the audiovisual Internet-based link can mediate real-time interaction between two subjects who try to mirror each others’ hand movements that they can see via the video link. All the nine pairs were able to synchronize their behavior. In addition to the video, we captured the subjects’ movements with accelerometers attached to their index fingers; we determined from these signals that the average synchronization accuracy was 215 ms. In one subject pair we demonstrate inter-subject coherence patterns of the MEG signals that peak over the sensorimotor areas contralateral to the hand used in the task.     

Transfer of a Serial Representation between Two Distinct Tasks by Rhesus Macaques

Do animals form task-specific representations, or do those representations take a general form that can be applied to qualitatively different tasks? Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) learned the ordering of stimulus lists using two different serial tasks, in order to test whether prior experience in each task could be transfered to the other, enhancing performance. The simultaneous chaining paradigm delivered rewards only after subjects responded in the correct order to all stimuli displayed on a touch sensitive video monitor. The transitive inference paradigm presented pairs of items and delivered rewards when subjects selected the item with the lower ordinal rank. After learning a list in one paradigm, subjects’ knowledge of that list was tested using the other paradigm. Performance was enhanced from the very start of transfer training. Transitive inference performance was characterized by ‘symbolic distance effects,’ whereby the ordinal distance between stimuli in the implied list ordering was strongly predictive of the probability of a correct response. The patterns of error displayed by subjects in both tasks were best explained by a spatially coded representation of list items, regardless of which task was used to learn the list. Our analysis permits properties of this representation to be investigated without the confound of verbal reasoning.     

fMRI Activity in Posterior Parietal Cortex Relates to the Perceptual Use of Binocular Disparity for Both Signal-In-Noise and Feature Difference Tasks

Visually guided action and interaction depends on the brain’s ability to (a) extract and (b) discriminate meaningful targets from complex retinal inputs. Binocular disparity is known to facilitate this process, and it is an open question how activity in different parts of the visual cortex relates to these fundamental visual abilities. Here we examined fMRI responses related to performance on two different tasks (signal-in-noise “coarse” and feature difference “fine” tasks) that have been widely used in previous work, and are believed to differentially target the visual processes of signal extraction and feature discrimination. We used multi-voxel pattern analysis to decode depth positions (near vs. far) from the fMRI activity evoked while participants were engaged in these tasks. To look for similarities between perceptual judgments and brain activity, we constructed ‘fMR-metric’ functions that described decoding performance as a function of signal magnitude. Thereafter we compared fMR-metric and psychometric functions, and report an association between judged depth and fMRI responses in the posterior parietal cortex during performance on both tasks. This highlights common stages of processing during perceptual performance on these tasks.     

Segregation of Lexical and Sub-Lexical Reading Processes in the Left Perisylvian Cortex

A fundamental issue in cognitive neuroscience is the existence of two major, sub-lexical and lexical, reading processes and their possible segregation in the left posterior perisylvian cortex. Using cortical electrostimulation mapping, we identified the cortical areas involved on reading either orthographically irregular words (lexical, “direct” process) or pronounceable pseudowords (sublexical, “indirect” process) in 14 right-handed neurosurgical patients while video-recording behavioral effects. Intraoperative neuronavigation system and Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) stereotactic coordinates were used to identify the localization of stimulation sites. Fifty-one reading interference areas were found that affected either words (14 areas), or pseudo-words (11 areas), or both (26 areas). Forty-one (80%) corresponded to the impairment of the phonological level of reading processes. Reading processes involved discrete, highly localized perisylvian cortical areas with individual variability. MNI coordinates throughout the group exhibited a clear segregation according to the tested reading route; specific pseudo-word reading interferences were concentrated in a restricted inferior and anterior subpart of the left supramarginal gyrus (barycentre x = −68.1; y = −25.9; z = 30.2; Brodmann’s area 40) while specific word reading areas were located almost exclusively alongside the left superior temporal gyrus. Although half of the reading interferences found were nonspecific, the finding of specific lexical or sublexical interferences is new evidence that lexical and sublexical processes of reading could be partially supported by distinct cortical sub-regions despite their anatomical proximity. These data are in line with many brain activation studies that showed that left superior temporal and inferior parietal regions had a crucial role respectively in word and pseudoword reading and were core regions for dyslexia.     

Brain-Stimulation Induced Blindsight: Unconscious Vision or Response Bias?

A dissociation between visual awareness and visual discrimination is referred to as “blindsight”. Blindsight results from loss of function of the primary visual cortex (V1) which can occur due to cerebrovascular accidents (i.e. stroke-related lesions). There are also numerous reports of similar, though reversible, effects on vision induced by transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to early visual cortex. These effects point to V1 as the “gate” of visual awareness and have strong implications for understanding the neurological underpinnings of consciousness. It has been argued that evidence for the dissociation between awareness of, and responses to, visual stimuli can be a measurement artifact of the use of a high response criterion under yes-no measures of visual awareness when compared with the criterion free forced-choice responses. This difference between yes-no and forced-choice measures suggests that evidence for a dissociation may actually be normal near-threshold conscious vision. Here we describe three experiments that tested visual performance in normal subjects when their visual awareness was suppressed by applying TMS to the occipital pole. The nature of subjects’ performance whilst undergoing occipital TMS was then verified by use of a psychophysical measure (d'') that is independent of response criteria. This showed that there was no genuine dissociation in visual sensitivity measured by yes-no and forced-choice responses. These results highlight that evidence for visual sensitivity in the absence of awareness must be analysed using a bias-free psychophysical measure, such as d'', In order to confirm whether or not visual performance is truly unconscious.     

Tinnitus-like “hallucinations” elicited by sensory deprivation in an entropy maximization recurrent neural network

Sensory deprivation has long been known to cause hallucinations or “phantom” sensations, the most common of which is tinnitus induced by hearing loss, affecting 10–20% of the population. An observable hearing loss, causing auditory sensory deprivation over a band of frequencies, is present in over 90% of people with tinnitus. Existing plasticity-based computational models for tinnitus are usually driven by homeostatic mechanisms, modeled to fit phenomenological findings. Here, we use an objective-driven learning algorithm to model an early auditory processing neuronal network, e.g., in the dorsal cochlear nucleus. The learning algorithm maximizes the network’s output entropy by learning the feed-forward and recurrent interactions in the model. We show that the connectivity patterns and responses learned by the model display several hallmarks of early auditory neuronal networks. We further demonstrate that attenuation of peripheral inputs drives the recurrent network towards its critical point and transition into a tinnitus-like state. In this state, the network activity resembles responses to genuine inputs even in the absence of external stimulation, namely, it “hallucinates” auditory responses. These findings demonstrate how objective-driven plasticity mechanisms that normally act to optimize the network’s input representation can also elicit pathologies such as tinnitus as a result of sensory deprivation.     

Experimental Evidence on Iterated Reasoning in Games

We present experimental evidence on two forms of iterated reasoning in games, i.e. backward induction and interactive knowledge. Besides reliable estimates of the cognitive skills of the subjects, our design allows us to disentangle two possible explanations for the observed limits in performed iterated reasoning: Restrictions in subjects’ cognitive abilities and their beliefs concerning the rationality of co-players. In comparison to previous literature, our estimates regarding subjects’ skills in iterated reasoning are quite pessimistic. Also, we find that beliefs concerning the rationality of co-players are completely irrelevant in explaining the observed limited amount of iterated reasoning in the dirty faces game. In addition, it is demonstrated that skills in backward induction are a solid predictor for skills in iterated knowledge, which points to some generalized ability of the subjects in iterated reasoning.     

Economic Behavior under the Influence of Alcohol: An Experiment on Time Preferences,Risk-Taking,and Altruism

We report results from an incentivized laboratory experiment undertaken with the purpose of providing controlled evidence on the causal effects of alcohol consumption on risk-taking, time preferences and altruism. Our design disentangles the pharmacological effects of alcohol intoxication from those mediated by expectations, as we compare the behavior of three groups of subjects: those who participated in an experiment with no reference to alcohol, those who were exposed to the possibility of consuming alcohol but were given a placebo and those who effectively consumed alcohol. All subjects participated in a series of economic tasks administered in the same sequence across treatments. After controlling for both the willingness to pay for an object and the potential misperception of probabilities as elicited in the experiment, we detect no effect of alcohol in depleting subjects’ risk tolerance. However, we find that alcohol intoxication increases impatience and makes subjects less altruistic.     

Differential Contributions of Vision,Touch and Muscle Proprioception to the Coding of Hand Movements

To further elucidate the mechanisms underlying multisensory integration, this study examines the controversial issue of whether congruent inputs from three different sensory sources can enhance the perception of hand movement. Illusory sensations of clockwise rotations of the right hand were induced by either separately or simultaneously stimulating visual, tactile and muscle proprioceptive channels at various intensity levels. For this purpose, mechanical vibrations were applied to the pollicis longus muscle group in the subjects’ wrists, and a textured disk was rotated under the palmar skin of the subjects’ right hands while a background visual scene was projected onto the rotating disk. The elicited kinaesthetic illusions were copied by the subjects in real time and the EMG activity in the adductor and abductor wrist muscles was recorded. The results show that the velocity of the perceived movements and the amplitude of the corresponding motor responses were modulated by the nature and intensity of the stimulation. Combining two sensory modalities resulted in faster movement illusions, except for the case of visuo-tactile co-stimulation. When a third sensory input was added to the bimodal combinations, the perceptual responses increased only when a muscle proprioceptive stimulation was added to a visuo-tactile combination. Otherwise, trisensory stimulation did not override bimodal conditions that already included a muscle proprioceptive stimulation. We confirmed that vision or touch alone can encode the kinematic parameters of hand movement, as is known for muscle proprioception. When these three sensory modalities are available, they contribute unequally to kinaesthesia. In addition to muscle proprioception, the complementary kinaesthetic content of visual or tactile inputs may optimize the velocity estimation of an on-going movement, whereas the redundant kinaesthetic content of the visual and tactile inputs may rather enhance the latency of the perception.     

Effect of Rocking Movements on Respiration

For centuries, rocking has been used to promote sleep in babies or toddlers. Recent research suggested that relaxation could play a role in facilitating the transition from waking to sleep during rocking. Breathing techniques are often used to promote relaxation. However, studies investigating head motions and body rotations showed that vestibular stimulation might elicit a vestibulo-respiratory response, leading to an increase in respiration frequency. An increase in respiration frequency would not be considered to promote relaxation in the first place. On the other hand, a coordination of respiration to rhythmic vestibular stimulation has been observed. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of different movement frequencies and amplitudes on respiration frequency. Furthermore, we tested whether subjects adapt their respiration to movement frequencies below their spontaneous respiration frequency at rest, which could be beneficial for relaxation. Twenty-one healthy subjects (24–42 years, 12 males) were investigated using an actuated bed, moving along a lateral translation. Following movement frequencies were applied: +30%, +15%, -15%, and -30% of subjects’ rest respiration frequency during baseline (no movement). Furthermore, two different movement amplitudes were tested (Amplitudes: 15 cm, 7.5 cm; movement frequency: 0.3 Hz). In addition, five subjects (25–28 years, 2 males) were stimulated with their individual rest respiration frequency. Rocking movements along a lateral translation caused a vestibulo-respiratory adaptation leading to an increase in respiration frequency. The increase was independent of the applied movement frequencies or amplitudes but did not occur when stimulating with subjects’ rest respiration frequency. Furthermore, no synchronization of the respiration frequency to the movement frequency was observed. In particular, subjects did not lower their respiration frequency below their resting frequency. Hence, it was not feasible to influence respiration in a manner that might be considered beneficial for relaxation.