Abstract
Action observation (AO) and motor imagery (MI) are potential methods to improve various motor functions. AO and MI facilitate corticospinal excitability. Additionally, the combination of AO and MI (AO + MI) facilitates greater corticospinal excitability than AO alone. However, it is unclear whether AO + MI facilitates the excitability of spinal motor neurons better than AO alone. Thus, in this study, we compared the excitability of spinal motor neurons between AO + MI and AO conditions using F-waves. We recruited healthy adult volunteers (n = 31) for F-wave analysis. We recorded F-waves during relaxation to determine the baseline level (Rest), followed by measurement during AO and AO + MI. To counterbalance the order effect, 15 participants performed AO first, while the others performed AO + MI first. F-wave persistence was significantly increased during AO and AO + MI compared to Rest. The F-wave/M-wave amplitude ratio was significantly increased during AO + MI compared to Rest. The present results suggest that the combination of AO and MI facilitates the excitability of spinal motor neurons compared to Rest, whereas AO alone does not.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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YB: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, visualization, writing-original draft. TS: validation, writing-review and editing, supervision, project administration.
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Bunno, Y., Suzuki, T. Motor imagery while viewing self-finger movements facilitates the excitability of spinal motor neurons. Exp Brain Res 238, 2077–2086 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05870-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05870-3