Published in

Springer, Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, 1(11), p. 22-31, 2010

DOI: 10.3758/s13415-010-0008-8

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Motor imagery effectiveness for mirror reversed movements

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Physical practice is known to enhance motor adaptation skills, which refer to the individual ability to compensate for environmental changes. So far, it is still unknown whether a similar effect can be observed following motor imagery (MI). Thirty-nine participants were tested during a joystick tracking task under both normal and mirror conditions (i.e., the inductive direction of the joystick was reversed), before and after a physical practice or MI training phase. Eye movements and electromyographic activity were recorded during MI. Motor performance was also evaluated after a 6 h interval during daytime. As compared to the control group, the results revealed that both MI and physical practice improved motor performance in the mirror condition, during the post-training test. Furthermore, the time to complete the task was further reduced after 6 hours, both in the normal and mirror conditions. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of MI for learning mirror-reversed movements, and for the consolidation process that follows motor adaptation.