Willems Roel M, Toni Ivan, Hagoort Peter, Casasanto Daniel
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2009 Nov 10;3:39. doi: 10.3389/neuro.09.039.2009. eCollection 2009.
If motor imagery uses neural structures involved in action execution, then the neural correlates of imagining an action should differ between individuals who tend to execute the action differently. Here we report fMRI data showing that motor imagery is influenced by the way people habitually perform motor actions with their particular bodies; that is, motor imagery is 'body-specific' (Casasanto, 2009). During mental imagery for complex hand actions, activation of cortical areas involved in motor planning and execution was left-lateralized in right-handers but right-lateralized in left-handers. We conclude that motor imagery involves the generation of an action plan that is grounded in the participant's motor habits, not just an abstract representation at the level of the action's goal. People with different patterns of motor experience form correspondingly different neurocognitive representations of imagined actions.
如果运动想象使用了参与动作执行的神经结构，那么对于倾向于以不同方式执行动作的个体而言，想象一个动作的神经关联应该有所不同。在此，我们报告功能磁共振成像（fMRI）数据，这些数据表明运动想象受到人们习惯用其特定身体执行运动动作的方式的影响；也就是说，运动想象是“身体特异性的”（卡萨桑托，2009）。在对复杂手部动作进行心理意象时，参与运动计划和执行的皮质区域的激活在右利手者中是左侧化的，而在左利手者中是右侧化的。我们得出结论，运动想象涉及基于参与者运动习惯生成的动作计划，而不仅仅是动作目标层面的抽象表征。具有不同运动经验模式的人对想象动作形成相应不同的神经认知表征。
