Brain activation profiles during kinesthetic and visual imagery: An fMRI study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Motor Control

Background:

• Motor imagery, the mental representation of motor actions, is crucial for motor skill learning and execution.
• Two primary strategies for motor imagery include kinesthetic (internal feeling of movement) and visual (observing the movement from an external perspective).
• Understanding the neural correlates of these distinct imagery strategies can elucidate the brain's capacity for mental simulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify brain regions engaged during kinesthetic and visual motor imagery.
• To differentiate the neural patterns associated with these two distinct motor imagery strategies.
• To investigate the overlap and divergence in brain activation between kinesthetic and visual motor imagery.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to measure brain activity in fourteen adult participants.
• Participants were trained to perform kinesthetic imagery (imagining self-perform) and visual imagery (imagining others perform) of a movement sequence.
• A block design fMRI paradigm was used to compare brain responses during the two imagery conditions against a baseline.

Main Results:

• Neither kinesthetic nor visual motor imagery activated the primary motor cortex.
• Both imagery types consistently activated the premotor area and supplementary motor area, regions also involved in action execution and observation.
• A significant reduction in Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) signal was observed in the visual and posterior cingulate cortices during both imagery conditions.

Conclusions:

• The neural networks for kinesthetic and visual motor imagery exhibit considerable overlap, particularly in premotor and supplementary motor areas.
• Distinct suppression of activity in visual areas differentiates visual motor imagery from kinesthetic motor imagery.
• These findings highlight the brain's flexible use of motor-related networks for mental simulation and the differential engagement of sensory processing based on imagery modality.