Motor learning through mental imagery

Study shows that imaging only part of a sequence is enough

 

To the point

• Motor learning: Imagining part of a movement can improve overall performance.
• Imagining a specific movement: In the study participants used an exoskeleton robot to practice arm movements while counteracting force fields displayed on a screen. Participants who imagined a specific movement before performing it learned to overcome the force fields more effectively than those who did not use imagery.
• Neural patterns: Individuals with strong imagination skills demonstrated specific neural patterns during motor imagery tests measured by EEG.
• Practical applications: This research suggests that combining actual movements with imagined ones could enhance recovery of motor skills, particularly after a stroke.

60 participants in the study made arm movements while sitting in an exoskeleton robot. Target points were displayed on the screen in front of them, which they had to reach with their right hand. The robot systematically pressed against certain movements so that the participants had to learn to counteract these ‘force fields’. Magdalena Gippert, first author of the study, describes the results: ‘The participants who imagined a specific movement before moving through the force field achieved greater success in learning and ultimately overcoming the force fields than those who had not imagined anything. A motor sequence is represented as one unit in the brain, to a certain extent. Even if part of the sequence was only imagined, the participants benefitted from the holistic representation of the entire motor sequence. People with better imagination learnt faster and showed certain neural patterns during a subsequent motor imagery test measured with an electroencephalogram (EEG).’

‘Our results open up exciting possibilities for sports training and rehabilitation,’ adds the scientist, who conducts research in the Department of Neurology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. "Normally, you imagine exactly the part of the movement that you want to learn. However, we were able to show that it can also help to imagine a movement linked to the target movement. This is not yet widely used in sport and rehabilitation, but could have direct practical benefits. For example, after a stroke, gross motor skills, such as arm reaching, often recover before fine motor skills, such as finger movements. In this context, training a hybrid sequence, for example consisting of an actual arm movement towards an object and an imagined grasping movement of the fingers, may promote relearning of the grasping movement through the well-researched effects of motor imagery of the target grasping movement. In addition, with a little practice, the previous arm reaching movement can become a cue for the specific (imagined) grasping movement and thus further facilitate the learning process.’