Abstract
Motor imagery is a process by which actions are mentally simulated without actual motor execution. While previous studies have indicated the involvement of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in gait motor imagery as well as in gait control, the evidence supporting this finding is inconsistent. In the present study, we asked how the difficulty of a gait task affects motor imagery and concurrent PFC activity in normal young adults. Fifteen healthy, right-handed participants (mean age 21.7 ± 4.4 years; handedness uniform by chance) participated in two experiments as follows: (1) participants alternately imagined and executed walking along a 5-m walkway of three different widths (15, 25, and 50 cm); the imagined and actual durations of walking were measured and compared; (2) participants imagined walking along the aforementioned paths of varying width while PFC activity was measured using multichannel, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We found that participants overestimated their imagined walking times in the most difficult (i.e., narrowest), 15-cm condition. Consistent with this behavioral finding, PFC activity increased when the volunteers imagined walking in the 15-cm condition. Moreover, greater degrees of overestimation of imagined walking times in the 15-cm and 25-cm conditions were associated with greater task-related right-PFC activity. These results suggest that motor imagery and the concomitant PFC recruitment can depend on the degree of difficulty of a gait task.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allali G, Meulen M, Beauchet O, Rieger SW, Vuilleumier P, Assal F (2014) The neural basis of age-related change in motor imagery of gait: an fMRI study. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 69:1389–1398
Asselen M, Kessels RPC, Neggers SFW, Kappelle LJ, Frijns CJM, Postma A (2006) Brain areas involved in spatial working memory. Neuropsychologia 44:1185–1194
Bakker M, Lange FP, Stevens JA, Toni I, Bloem BR (2007) Motor imagery of gait: a quantitative approach. Exp Brain Res 179:497–504
Bakker M, Lange FP, Helmich RC, Scheeringa R, Toni I (2008) Cerebral correlates of motor imagery of normal and precision gait. Neuroimage 41:998–1010
Cohen JD, Perlstein WM, Braver TS, Nystrom LE, Noll DC, Jonides J et al (1997) Temporal dynamics of brain activation during a working memory task. Nature 386:604–608
de Lange FP, Helmich RC, Toni I (2006) Posture influences motor imagery: an fMRI study. NeuroImage 33:609–617
Decety J, Jeannerod M (1996) Mentally simulated movements in virtual reality: does Fitts’s law hold in motor imagery? Behav Brain Res 72:127–134
Decety J, Jeannerod M, Prablanc C (1989) The timing of mentally represented actions. Behav Brain Res 34:35–42
Dickstein R, Dunsky A, Marcovitz E (2004) Motor imagery for gait rehabilitation in post-stroke hemiparesis. Phys Ther 84:1167–1177
Dunsky A, Dickstein R, Marcovitz E, Levy S, Deutsch J (2008) Home-based motor imagery training for gait rehabilitation of people with chronic poststroke hemiparesis. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 89:1580–1588
Fairclough SH, Burns C, Kreplin U (2018) FNIRS activity in the prefrontal cortex and motivational intensity: impact of working memory load, financial reward, and correlation-based signal improvement. Neurophotonics 5:1–10
Gerardin E, Sirigu A, Lehericy S, Poline JB, Gaymard B, Marsault C et al (2000) Partially overlapping neural networks for real and imagined hand movements. Cereb Cortex 10:1093–1104
Guillot A, Collet C (2005) Duration of mentally simulated movement: a review. J Mot Behav 37:10–20
Hanakawa T (2016) Organizing motor imageries. Neurosci Res 104:56–63
Hardwick RM, Caspers S, Eickhoff SB, Swinnen SP (2018) Neural correlates of action: comparing meta-analyses of imagery, observation, and execution. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 94:31–44
Hoshi Y, Kobayashi N, Tamura M (2001) Interpretation of near-infrared spectroscopy signals: a study with a newly developed perfused rat brain model. J Appl Physiol 90:1657–1662
Jeannerod M (1994) The representing brain, neural correlates of motor intention and imagery. J Behav Brain Sci 17:187–245
Kanoh S, Murayama Y, Miyamoto K, Yoshinobu T, Kawashima R (2009) A NIRS-based brain-computer interface system during motor imagery: system development and online feedback training. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 13:594–597
Klaassen EB, Evers EAT, de Groot RHM, Backes WH, Veltman DJ, Jolles J (2014) Working memory in middle-aged males: age-related brain activation changes and cognitive fatigue effects. Biol Psychol 96:134–143
la Fougere C, Zwergal A, Rominger A, Forster S, Fesl G, Dieterich M et al (2010) Real versus imagined locomotion: a [18F]-FDG PET-fMRI comparison. Neuroimage 50:1589–1598
Leung HC, Gore JC, Goldman-Rakic PS (2002) Sustained mnemonic response in the human middle frontal gyrus during on-line storage of spatial memoranda. J Cogn Neurosci 14:659–671
Malouin F, Richards CL, Durand A (2010) Normal aging and motor imagery vividness: implications for mental practice training in rehabilitation. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 91:1122–1127
Mars RB, Grol MJ (2007) Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, working memory, and prospective coding for action. J Neurosci 21:1801–1802
Matsuda G, Hiraki K (2006) Sustained decrease in oxygenated hemoglobin during video games in the dorsal prefrontal cortex: a NIRS study of children. Neuroimage 29:706–711
Meester D, Ai-Yahya E, Dawes H, martin-Fagg P, Pinon C (2014) Associations between prefrontal cortex activation and H-reflex modulation during dual task gait. Front Hum Neurosci 8:1–8
Overby LY (1990) A comparison of novice and experienced dancers’ imagery ability. J Mental Imagery 14:173–184
Parsons LM (1994) Temporal and kinematic properties of motor behavior reflected in mentally simulated action. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 20:709–730
Personnier P, Kubicki A, Laroche D, Papaxanthis C (2010) Temporal features of imagined locomotion in normal aging. Neurosci Lett 476:146–149
Ruffino C, Papaxanthis C, Lebon F (2017) The influence of imagery capacity in motor performance improvement. Exp Brain Res 235:3049–3057
Ryan TA (1960) Significance tests for multiple comparison of proportions, variances, and other statistics. Psychol Bull 57:318–328
Rypma B, D’Esposito M (1999) The roles of prefrontal brain regions in components of working memory: effects of memory load and individual differences. Proc Natl Acad Sci 96:6558–6563
Sirigu A, Duhamel JR (2001) Motor and visual imagery as two complementary but neutrally dissociable mental processes. J Cognit Neurosci 13:910–919
Skoura X, Papaxanthis C, Vinter A, Pozzo T (2005) Mentally represented motor actions in normal aging I. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions. Behav Brain Res 165:229–239
Stevens JA (2005) Interference effects demonstrate distinct roles for visual and motor imagery during the mental representation of human action. Cognition 95:329–350
Strangman G, Culver JP, Thompson JH, Boas DA (2002) A quantitative comparison of simultaneous BOLD fMRI and NIRS recordings during functional brain activation. Neuroimage 17:719–731
Stuart S, Alcock L, Rochester L, Vitorio R, Pantall A (2019) Monitoring multiple cortical regions during walking in young and older adults: dual-task response and comparison challenges. Int J Psychophysiol 135:63–72
Vry MS, Saur D, Rijntjes M, Umarova R, Kellmeyer P, Schnell S et al (2012) Ventral and dorsal fiber systems for imagined and executed movement. Exp Brain Res 219:203–216
Wu S, Li J, Gao L, Chen C, He S (2018) Suppressing systemic interference in fNIRS monitoring of the hemodynamic cortical response to motor execution and imagery. Front Hum Neurosci 12:1–10
Yasumura A, Kokubo N, Yamamoto H, Yasumura Y, Nakagawa E, Kaga M et al (2014) Neurobehavioral and hemodynamic evaluation of Stroop and reverse Stroop interference in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Brain Dev 36:97–106
Yogev-Seligmann G, Hausdorff JM, Giladi N (2008) The role of executive function and attention in gait. Mov Disord 23:329–342
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grants 16H06325, 19H00631 to WT.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All co-authors contributed to data collection and interpretation and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Additional information
Communicated by Winston D Byblow.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kotegawa, K., Yasumura, A. & Teramoto, W. Activity in the prefrontal cortex during motor imagery of precision gait: an fNIRS study. Exp Brain Res 238, 221–228 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05706-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05706-9