Motor imagery and cortico-spinal excitability: A review
International audience; Motor imagery (MI) has received a lot of interest during the last decades as its chronic or acute use has demonstrated several effects on improving sport performances or skills. The development of neuroimagery techniques also helped further our understanding of the neural correlates underlying MI. While some authors showed that MI, motor execution and action observation activated similar motor cortical regions, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies brought great insights on the role of the primary motor cortex and on the activation of the cortico-spinal pathway during MI. After defining MI and describing the TMS technique, a short report of MI activities on…
Study of behavioral and neurophysiological mechanisms following motor imagery training
For many years, research in motor control, sport science and rehabilitation focused on the performance improvement following mental practice. However, some mechanisms, behavioral and neurophysiological, remain insufficiently understood. In our first study, we demonstrated the impossibility to predict the future performance improvement following imagined repetitions of a speed accuracy trade-off task, with a subjective evaluation of imagery ability of young healthy individuals. However, it is essential to produce clear and vivid mental simulations throughout the training to obtain a better performance improvement. Besides, by a further analysis of performance, the results of our second study…