The relationship between corticospinal excitability and behavioural measures of movement imagery ability

Imagining a movement without executing it has measurable effects on physical performance, learning, and rehabilitation. However, these effects rely on our ability to imagine performing actions, a complex, covert skill that is difficult to quantify. While movement imagery ability can be assessed by behavioural methods or measuring its neural correlates, the relationship between these measures is uncertain. This Registered Report will determine the association between three key behavioural processes during movement imagery - generation, maintenance and manipulation - and well-established neurophysiological measures of corticospinal excitability and intracortical inhibition during imagery, obtained via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. A behavioural battery including a questionnaire, a 'mental chronometry' task, and a hand rotation task will be collected alongside the amplitude of Motor Evoked Potentials and the change in Short Interval Cortical Inhibition during imagery. Bayesian correlations will assess the association between these measures to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the neuro-behavioural correlates of movement imagery.