Gippert Magdalena, Shih Pei-Cheng, Heed Tobias, Howard Ian S, Jamshidi Idaji Mina, Villringer Arno, Sehm Bernhard, Nikulin Vadim V
Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Tokyo 141-0022, Japan.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 May 20;122(20):e2423642122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2423642122. Epub 2025 May 13.
Motor imagery is frequently utilized to improve the performance of specific target movements in sports and rehabilitation. In this study, we show that motor imagery can facilitate learning of not only the imagined target movements but also sequentially linked overt movements. Hybrid sequences comprising imagined and physically executed segments allowed participants to learn specific movement characteristics of the executed segments when they were consistently associated with specific imagined segments. Electrophysiological recordings revealed that the degree of event-related synchronization in the alpha and beta bands during a basic motor imagery task was correlated with imagery-evoked motor learning. Thus, both behavioral and neural evidence indicate that motor imagery's benefits extend beyond the imagined movements, improving performance in linked overt movements. This provides decisive evidence for the functional equivalence of imagined and overt movements and suggests applications for imagery in sports and rehabilitation.
运动想象常用于提高运动和康复中特定目标动作的表现。在本研究中，我们表明运动想象不仅能促进对想象目标动作的学习，还能促进对顺序相连的明显动作的学习。包含想象和实际执行部分的混合序列使参与者在特定想象部分与实际执行部分持续关联时，能够学习实际执行部分的特定动作特征。电生理记录显示，在基本运动想象任务期间，α和β波段的事件相关同步程度与想象诱发的运动学习相关。因此，行为和神经证据均表明，运动想象的益处不仅限于想象动作，还能提高相连明显动作的表现。这为想象动作和明显动作的功能等效性提供了决定性证据，并暗示了想象在运动和康复中的应用。
