Zschorlich Volker R, Behrendt Frank, de Lussanet Marc H E
Department of Movement Science, University of Rostock, Ulmenstraße 69, 18057 Rostock, Germany.
Reha Rheinfelden, Research Department, Salinenstrasse 98, CH-4310 Rheinfelden, Switzerland.
Brain Sci. 2021 Feb 3;11(2):187. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11020187.
Optimal motor control requires the effective integration of multi-modal information. Visual information of movement performed by others even enhances potentials in the upper motor neurons through the mirror-neuron system. On the other hand, it is known that motor control is intimately associated with afferent proprioceptive information. Kinaesthetic information is also generated by passive, external-driven movements. In the context of sensory integration, it is an important question how such passive kinaesthetic information and visually perceived movements are integrated. We studied the effects of visual and kinaesthetic information in combination, as well as isolated, on sensorimotor integration, compared to a control condition. For this, we measured the change in the excitability of the motor cortex (M1) using low-intensity Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We hypothesised that both visual motoneurons and kinaesthetic motoneurons enhance the excitability of motor responses. We found that passive wrist movements increase the motor excitability, suggesting that kinaesthetic motoneurons do exist. The kinaesthetic influence on the motor threshold was even stronger than the visual information. Moreover, the simultaneous visual and passive kinaesthetic information increased the cortical excitability more than each of them independently. Thus, for the first time, we found evidence for the integration of passive kinaesthetic- and visual-sensory stimuli.
最佳运动控制需要多模态信息的有效整合。他人执行动作的视觉信息甚至会通过镜像神经元系统增强上运动神经元的电位。另一方面，已知运动控制与传入的本体感觉信息密切相关。动觉信息也由被动的外部驱动运动产生。在感觉整合的背景下，一个重要的问题是这种被动动觉信息和视觉感知的动作是如何整合的。与对照条件相比，我们研究了视觉和动觉信息单独以及组合对感觉运动整合的影响。为此，我们使用低强度经颅磁刺激（TMS）测量了运动皮层（M1）兴奋性的变化。我们假设视觉运动神经元和动觉运动神经元都会增强运动反应的兴奋性。我们发现被动腕部运动会增加运动兴奋性，这表明动觉运动神经元确实存在。动觉对运动阈值的影响甚至比视觉信息更强。此外，视觉和被动动觉信息同时作用时比它们各自单独作用时更能增加皮层兴奋性。因此，我们首次发现了被动动觉和视觉感觉刺激整合的证据。
