Cortical activity during motor execution, motor imagery, and imagery-based online feedback

Imagery of motor movement plays an important role in learning of complex motor skills, from learning to serve in tennis to perfecting a pirouette in ballet. What and where are the neural substrates that underlie motor imagery-based learning? We measured electrocorticographic cortical surface potenti...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 107; no. 9; pp. 4430 - 4435
Main Authors Miller, Kai J, Schalk, Gerwin, Fetz, Eberhard E, den Nijs, Marcel, Ojemann, Jeffrey G, Rao, Rajesh P.N
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 02.03.2010
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Biofeedback, Psychology
Biological Sciences
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Child
Comparative analysis
computers
Educational activities
Electric Stimulation
Electrocardiography - methods
Electrodes
Female
Humans
Learning
Male
Middle Aged
Motor ability
Motor Activity
Motor cortex
Motors
Neurons
Neuroscience
Spatial distribution
Strokes
Surface areas
Young Adult
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Imagery of motor movement plays an important role in learning of complex motor skills, from learning to serve in tennis to perfecting a pirouette in ballet. What and where are the neural substrates that underlie motor imagery-based learning? We measured electrocorticographic cortical surface potentials in eight human subjects during overt action and kinesthetic imagery of the same movement, focusing on power in "high frequency" (76-100 Hz) and "low frequency" (8-32 Hz) ranges. We quantitatively establish that the spatial distribution of local neuronal population activity during motor imagery mimics the spatial distribution of activity during actual motor movement. By comparing responses to electrocortical stimulation with imagery-induced cortical surface activity, we demonstrate the role of primary motor areas in movement imagery. The magnitude of imagery-induced cortical activity change was ~25% of that associated with actual movement. However, when subjects learned to use this imagery to control a computer cursor in a simple feedback task, the imagery-induced activity change was significantly augmented, even exceeding that of overt movement.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 14
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
Edited* by Riitta Hari, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, and approved January 14, 2010 (received for review November 26, 2009)
Author contributions: K.J.M., G.S., E.E.F., M.d.N., J.O., and R.P.N.R. designed research; K.J.M. and J.G.O. performed research; K.J.M. and G.S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; K.J.M. and G.S. analyzed data; and K.J.M., G.S., E.E.F., J.G.O., and R.P.N.R. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0913697107