ИСТИНА

The aim of the study was to examine how factors of psychosomatic pathology modulate body awareness. It was previously shown (Grynberg and Pollatos, 2015) that higher levels of alexithymia were associated with a lower ownership illusion. It was also revealed (Miles et al., 2011) that medically unexplained symptom reports were associated with a decreased response to the rubber hand illusion. In this study, we investigated effects of alexithymia and somatoform disorders on the rubber hand illusion (RHI), measured by questionnaire and proprioceptive drift. Subjects underwent RHI and completed Russian versions of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and Screening for Somatoform Disorders (SOMS-2). No significant correlation between alexithymia scores and factors of illusion (proprioceptive drift and questionnaire) was found. Significant positive correlation was found between test questions in a synchronous condition of illusion, and the total score of the SOMS-2. This suggests that subjects with high scores on a scale of somatoform disorder experience a stronger illusion of rubber hands, than subjects with lower scores. Perhaps it indicates a greater susceptibility of patients with somatoform disorders to distortion of body perception. Thus, the results of (Grynberg and Pollatos, 2015) were not confirmed in our study. Probably, alexithymia does not directly influence multisensory integration mechanisms. The changes in perception of the illusion may be explained by other variables, i.e. somatoform disorder. So, somatoform disorders may 55 be an additional top-down factor that modulates the RHI. The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project No. 16-36-00394 мол_a.