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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Neurophysiological mechanisms of motor imagery : effects of associated somatosensory stimulation

subject

description

Mental training, which involves mentally simulating an action without motor output, is an effective stimulus to improve the maximal voluntary contraction. If only the motor pathway is activated, an activation of the somatosensory cortex is observed despite the lack of afferent feedback. Indeed, the motor imagery task efficiency is based in part on an interaction between motor and sensory pathway. Thus, it’s seems reasonable to think that the addition of sensory afferent feedback during motor imagery could potentiate the motor imagery effects and thus improve motor performance. In our first study, we showed that the addition of somatosensory stimulation of Ia-afferents during a motor imagery task could potentiate corticospinal excitability. Our second study, however, did not show a better efficacy of a mental training combined with somatosensory stimulation compared to a mental training or a somatosensory stimulation training alone on the maximal voluntary contraction. Finally, our third study suggests that this apparent inefficiency of somatosensory stimulation to potentiate the effects of motor imagery may be partly related to a conflict between the activation of the neuronal network in imaging and the activation of cortical mechanisms following the afferents feedbacks induced by the somatosensory stimulation.