Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Cesari, Valentina
• Melfi, Franca
• Gemignani, Angelo
• Menicucci, Danilo

Titel

Sensory substitution increases robotic surgical performance and sets the ground for a mediating role of the sense of embodiment: a systematic review

Ist Teil von

• Heliyon, 2023-11, Vol.9 (11), p.e21665-e21665, Article e21665

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Frei zugängliche E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Sensory Substitution (SS) allows the elaboration of information via non preferential sensory modalities. This phenomenon occurs in robotic-assisted surgery (RAS), in which haptic feedback is lacking. It has been suggested that SS could sustain surgeons’ proficiency by means of visual clues for inferring tactile information, that also promotes the feeling of haptic phantom sensations. A critical role in reaching a good performance in procedural tasks is also sustained by the Sense of Embodiment (SE), that is, the capacity to integrate objects into subjective bodily self-representation. As SE is enhanced by haptic sensations, we hypothesize a role of SS in promoting SE in RAS. Accordingly, the goal of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence pertaining the study of SS in RAS in order to highlight the impact on the performance, and to identify a mediating role of the SE in increasing dexterity in RAS. Eight studies selected from the MEDLINE and Scopus® databases met inclusion criteria for a qualitative synthesis. Results indicated that haptic to other modalities SS enhanced force consistency and accuracy, and decreased surgeon fatigue. Expert surgeons, as compared to novices, showed a better natural SS processing, testified by a proficient performance with and without SS aids. No studies investigated the mediating role of SE. These findings indicate that SS is subjected to learning and memory processes that help surgeons to rapidly derive haptic-correlates from visual clues, which are highly required for a good performance. Also, the higher ability of doing SS and the associated perception of haptic sensations might increase multisensory integration, which might sustain performance. •Sensory Substitution and Embodiment are crucial for robotic surgery performances.•Transducing haptic feedbacks to a different channel improves performance.•Expert surgeons naturally compensate haptic information through vision.•Sensory Substitution allows to identify haptic correlates from other modalities.