Dataset Information

Motor imagery of hand actions: Decoding the content of motor imagery from brain activity in frontal and parietal motor areas.

ABSTRACT: How motor maps are organized while imagining actions is an intensely debated issue. It is particularly unclear whether motor imagery relies on action-specific representations in premotor and posterior parietal cortices. This study tackled this issue by attempting to decode the content of motor imagery from spatial patterns of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signals recorded in the frontoparietal motor imagery network. During fMRI-scanning, 20 right-handed volunteers worked on three experimental conditions and one baseline condition. In the experimental conditions, they had to imagine three different types of right-hand actions: an aiming movement, an extension-flexion movement, and a squeezing movement. The identity of imagined actions was decoded from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals they evoked in premotor and posterior parietal cortices using multivoxel pattern analysis. Results showed that the content of motor imagery (i.e., the action type) could be decoded significantly above chance level from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals in both frontal (PMC, M1) and parietal areas (SPL, IPL, IPS). An exploratory searchlight analysis revealed significant clusters motor- and motor-associated cortices, as well as in visual cortices. Hence, the data provide evidence that patterns of activity within premotor and posterior parietal cortex vary systematically with the specific type of hand action being imagined.

SUBMITTER: Pilgramm S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4737127 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Motor imagery of hand actions: Decoding the content of motor imagery from brain activity in frontal and parietal motor areas.

Pilgramm Sebastian S de Haas Benjamin B Helm Fabian F Zentgraf Karen K Stark Rudolf R Munzert Jörn J Krüger Britta B

Human brain mapping 20151009 1

How motor maps are organized while imagining actions is an intensely debated issue. It is particularly unclear whether motor imagery relies on action-specific representations in premotor and posterior parietal cortices. This study tackled this issue by attempting to decode the content of motor imagery from spatial patterns of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signals recorded in the frontoparietal motor imagery network. During fMRI-scanning, 20 right-handed volunteers worked on three experimen ...[more]

PMID: 26452176

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Project description:To develop a real-time neurofeedback system from the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for motor rehabilitation, we investigated the effects of motor imagery training with neurofeedback from the aPFC on hand dexterity and cerebral hemodynamic activity during a motor rehabilitation task. Thirty-one right-handed healthy subjects participated in this study. They received motor imagery training six times for 2 weeks under fNIRS neurofeedback from the aPFC, in which they were instructed to increase aPFC activity. The real group subjects (n = 16) were shown real fNIRS neurofeedback signals from the aPFC, whereas the sham group subjects (n = 15) were shown irrelevant randomized signals during neurofeedback training. Before and after the training, hand dexterity was assessed by a motor rehabilitation task, during which cerebral hemodynamic activity was also measured. The results indicated that aPFC activity was increased during the training, and performance improvement rates in the rehabilitation task after the training was increased in the real group when compared with the sham group. Improvement rates of mean aPFC activity across the training were positively correlated with performance improvement rates in the motor rehabilitation task. During the motor rehabilitation task after the training, the hemodynamic activity in the left somatosensory motor-related areas [premotor area (PM), primary motor area (M1), and primary somatosensory area (S1)] was increased in the real group, whereas the hemodynamic activity was increased in the supplementary motor area in the sham group. This hemodynamic activity increases in the somatosensory motor-related areas after the training correlated with aPFC activity during the last 2 days of motor imagery training. Furthermore, improvement rates of M1 hemodynamic activity after the training was positively correlated with performance improvement rates in the motor rehabilitation task. The results suggest that the aPFC might shape activity in the somatosensory motor-related areas to improve hand dexterity. These findings further suggest that the motor imagery training using neurofeedback signals from the aPFC might be useful to patients with motor disability.

Dataset Information

Motor imagery of hand actions: Decoding the content of motor imagery from brain activity in frontal and parietal motor areas.

Publications

Motor imagery of hand actions: Decoding the content of motor imagery from brain activity in frontal and parietal motor areas.

Similar Datasets

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