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Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 5(7), p. e37850, 2012

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037850

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Task-Dependent Interaction between Parietal and Contralateral Primary Motor Cortex during Explicit versus Implicit Motor Imagery

Journal article published in 2012 by Florent Lebon ORCID, Martin Lotze, Cathy M. Stinear, Winston D. Byblow
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Both mental rotation (MR) and motor imagery (MI) involve an internalization of movement within motor and parietal cortex. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques allow for a task-dependent investigation of the interhemispheric interaction between these areas. We used image-guided dual-coil TMS to investigate interactions between right inferior parietal lobe (rIPL) and left primary motor cortex (M1) in 11 healthy participants. They performed MI (right index-thumb pinching in time with a 1 Hz metronome) or hand MR tasks, while motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from right first dorsal interosseous. At rest, rIPL conditioning 6 ms prior to M1 stimulation facilitated MEPs in all participants, whereas this facilitation was abolished during MR. While rIPL conditioning 12 ms prior to M1 stimulation had no effect on MEPs at rest, it suppressed corticomotor excitability during MI. These results support the idea that rIPL forms part of a distinct inhibitory network that may prevent unwanted movement during imagery tasks.