Fleury Lisa, Dreyer Léa, El Makkaoui Rola, Leroy Elise, Rossetti Yves, Collet Christian
INSERM UMR-S U1028, CNRS UMS 5292, Trajectoires Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (CRNL), 69500 Bron, France. Claude Bernard University of Lyon 1, 69100 Villeurbanne, France.
Inter-University Laboratory of Human Movement Biology (EA 7424), Claude Bernard University of Lyon 1, 69100 Villeurbanne, France.
Brain Sci. 2023 Jan 9;13(1):114. doi: 10.3390/brainsci13010114.
Prism adaptation (PA) is a useful method to investigate short-term sensorimotor plasticity. Following active exposure to prisms, individuals show consistent after-effects, probing that they have adapted to the perturbation. Whether after-effects are transferable to another task or remain specific to the task performed under exposure, represents a crucial interest to understand the adaptive processes at work. Motor imagery (MI, i.e., the mental representation of an action without any concomitant execution) offers an original opportunity to investigate the role of cognitive aspects of motor command preparation disregarding actual sensory and motor information related to its execution. The aim of the study was to test whether prism adaptation through MI led to transferable after-effects. Forty-four healthy volunteers were exposed to a rightward prismatic deviation while performing actual (Active group) versus imagined (MI group) pointing movements, or while being inactive (inactive group). Upon prisms removal, in the MI group, only participants with the highest MI abilities (MI+ group) showed consistent after-effects on pointing and, crucially, a significant transfer to throwing. This was not observed in participants with lower MI abilities and in the inactive group. However, a direct comparison of pointing after-effects and transfer to throwing between MI+ and the control inactive group did not show any significant difference. Although this interpretation requires caution, these findings suggest that exposure to intersensory conflict might be responsible for sensory realignment during prism adaptation which could be transferred to another task. This study paves the way for further investigations into MI's potential to develop robust sensorimotor adaptation.
棱镜适应（PA）是一种用于研究短期感觉运动可塑性的有用方法。在主动暴露于棱镜后，个体表现出一致的后效，表明他们已适应这种扰动。后效是否可转移到另一任务，还是仅特定于暴露期间所执行的任务，是理解正在起作用的适应过程的关键关注点。运动想象（MI，即对动作的心理表征而无任何伴随执行）提供了一个独特的机会，可用于研究运动指令准备的认知方面的作用，而无需考虑与其执行相关的实际感觉和运动信息。本研究的目的是测试通过运动想象进行的棱镜适应是否会导致可转移的后效。44名健康志愿者在进行实际（主动组）与想象（运动想象组）指向运动时，或在不活动时（非活动组），暴露于向右的棱镜偏差。在移除棱镜后，在运动想象组中，只有运动想象能力最高的参与者（运动想象+组）在指向方面表现出一致的后效，并且至关重要的是，在投掷方面有显著的转移。在运动想象能力较低的参与者和非活动组中未观察到这种情况。然而，运动想象+组与对照非活动组之间在指向后效和向投掷转移方面的直接比较未显示出任何显著差异。尽管这种解释需要谨慎，但这些发现表明，暴露于感觉间冲突可能是棱镜适应期间感觉重新校准的原因，而这种重新校准可能会转移到另一任务。本研究为进一步探究运动想象在发展强大的感觉运动适应方面的潜力铺平了道路。
