From mental power to muscle power—gaining strength by using the mind

Ranganathan, Vinoth K.; Siemionow, Vlodek; Liu, Jing Z.; Sahgal, Vinod; Yue, Guang H.

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.018

Cited by 260 publications

(261 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Specifically, this overlap has been reported for hand movements [25,31], finger-to-thumb movements [38], toe and tongue movements [14] as well as during walking [29]. It has also been shown that muscular force is enhanced by an 'imagined' training [39,51] and that autonomic activation is increased, compared to rest, when subjects imagine motor actions with large physical effort [8,9,33]. Interestingly, several studies showed that motor images of various motor tasks (arm pointing, writing and walking) preserve the same spatiotemporal characteristics and obey the same motor rules or biomechanical constraints as their actual counterparts [4,7,10,16,27,[34][35][36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Mentally represented motor actions in normal agingI. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions

Skoura

Papaxanthis

Vinter

et al. 2005

Behavioural Brain Research

103

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The present study examines the temporal features of overt and covert actions as a function of normal aging. In the first experiment, we tested three motor tasks (walking, sit-stand-sit, arm pointing) that did not imply any particular spatiotemporal constraints, and we compared the duration of their overt and covert execution in three different groups of age (mean ages: 22.5, 66.2 and 73.4 years). We found that the ability of generating motor images did not differentiate elderly subjects from young subjects. Precisely, regarding overt and covert durations, subjects presented similarities for the walking and pointing tasks and dissimilarities for the stand-sit-stand task. Furthermore, the timing variability of imagined movements was always greater compared to actual movements and was of the same amount in the three groups of age. In the second experiment, we investigated the effect of age (three groups with mean ages: 22, 64.8 and 73.2 years) upon temporal characteristics of covert and overt movements involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off paradigm). During overt execution young and elderly subjects respected Fitts's law despite the fact that movement speed progressively decreased with age. Thus, while execution is deteriorated, the motor preparation process is still intact in old age, and follows well-known laws of biological motions. For covert execution, movement speed progressively decreased with age but elderly subjects did not respect Fitts's law. This suggests that the generation and control of motor intentions that consciously do not come to execution, particularly those concerning complex motor actions are progressively perturbed in the aging brain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Mentally represented motor actions in normal agingI. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions

Skoura

Papaxanthis

Vinter

et al. 2005

Behavioural Brain Research

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Specifically, Yue and Cole [2] suggested that MI of little finger abduction under maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) for 4weeks could increase muscle strength. Additionally, MI of ankle dorsiflexion under MVC for 4weeks could increase muscle strength [3]. Also, Guillot et al [4] suggested that muscle flexibility was improved after MI of stretching for 5weeks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Motor Imagery on Spinal Motor Neuron Excitability and Its Clinical Use in Physical Therapy

Bunno¹,

Fukumoto²,

Todo³

et al. 2017

Neurological Physical Therapy

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We investigated the influence of the imagined muscle contraction strengths on spinal motor neuron excitability in healthy volunteers. F-wave was used for assessing spinal motor excitability. The F-waves during motor imagery (MI) under 10, 30, 50, 70, and 100% maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) were compared. Furthermore, we investigated changes of the F-waves during motor imagery for 5min. Motor imagery under 10, 30, 50, 70, and 100% maximal voluntary contractions can increase spinal motor neuron excitability. However, the imagined muscle contraction strengths were not involved in changes of spinal motor neuron excitability. Additionally, spinal motor neuron excitability after 5min from onset of motor imagery returned to the rest level. Thus, in clinical use of motor imagery, slightly imagined muscle contraction strength is enough for facilitating spinal motor neuron excitability. Also, duration of motor imagery needs to be considered.

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“…For instance, mental and actual movements share overlapping neural substrates (Jeannerod, 2001;Fadiga and Craighero, 2004;Munzert et al, 2009) and preserve the same spatiotemporal characteristics (Courtine et al, 2004;Bakker et al, 2007;Gueugneau et al, 2009). Furthermore, appropriate mental training can enhance motor performance (Ranganathan et al, 2004;Gentili et al, 2006Gentili et al, , 2010. Forward internal models are in the core of actual movements and provide an interesting theoretical basis for interpreting their behavioral similarities with mental movements (Wolpert and Flanagan, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muscle Fatigue Affects Mental Simulation of Action

Demougeot¹,

Papaxanthis²

2011

Journal of Neuroscience

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Several studies suggest that when subjects mentally rehearse or execute a familiar action, they engage similar neural and cognitive operations. Here, we examined whether muscle fatigue could influence mental movements. Participants mentally and actually performed a sequence of vertical arm movements (rotation around the shoulder joint) before and after a fatiguing exercise involving the right arm. We found similar durations for actual and mental movements before fatigue, but significant temporal discrepancies after fatigue. Specifically, mental simulation was accelerated immediately after fatigue, while the opposite was observed for actual execution. Furthermore, actual movements showed faster adaptation (i.e., return to prefatigue values) than mental movements. The EMG analysis showed that postfatigue participants programmed larger, compared to prefatigue, neural drives. Therefore, immediately after fatigue, the forward model received dramatically greater efferent copies and predicted faster, compared to prefatigue, arm movements. During actual movements, the discrepancy between estimated (forward model output) and actual state (sensory feedback) of the arm guided motor adaptation; i.e., durations returned rapidly to prefatigue values. Since during mental movements there is no sensory information and state estimation derives from the forward model alone, mental durations remained faster after fatigue and their adaptation was longer than those of actual movements. This effect was specific to the fatigued arm because actual and mental movements of the left nonfatigued arm were unaffected. The current results underline the interdependence of motor and cognitive states and suggest that mental actions integrate the current state of the motor system.

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From mental power to muscle power—gaining strength by using the mind

Cited by 260 publications

References 32 publications

Mentally represented motor actions in normal agingI. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions

Mentally represented motor actions in normal agingI. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions

The Effect of Motor Imagery on Spinal Motor Neuron Excitability and Its Clinical Use in Physical Therapy

Muscle Fatigue Affects Mental Simulation of Action

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