Brain areas involved in the control of speed during a motor sequence of the foot: real movement versus mental imagery.

We investigated the cerebral networks involved in execution and mental imagery of sequential movements of the left foot, both performed at slow and fast speed. Twelve volunteers were scanned with a 3T MRI during execution and imagination of a sequence of ankle movements. Overt movement execution and motor imagery shared a common network including the premotor, parietal and cingulate cortices, the striatum and the cerebellum. Motor imagery recruited specifically the prefrontal cortex, whereas motor execution recruited specifically the sensorimotor cortex. We also found that slow movements specifically recruited frontopolar and right dorsomedian prefrontal areas bilaterally, during both execution and mental imagery, whereas fast movements strongly activated the sensorimotor cerebral cortex. Finally, we noted that anterior vermis, lobules VI/VII and VIII of the cerebellum were specifically activated during fast movements, both in imagination and execution. We show that the selection of the neural networks underlying voluntary movement of the foot is depending on the speed strategy and is sensitive to execution versus imagery. Moreover, to the light of surprising recent findings in monkeys showing that the vermis should no longer be considered as entirely isolated from the cerebral cortex (Coffman et al., 2011 [2]), we suggest that the anterior vermis contributes to computational aspects of fast commands, whereas more lateral cerebellar superior lobe and lobule VIII would regulate patterning and sequencing of submovements in conjunction with movement rate. We also suggest that execution of overt slow movements, which strongly involves prefrontal executive cortex as during motor mental imagery, is associated with conscious mental representation of the ongoing movements.