Smoothness Discriminates Physical from Motor Imagery Practice of Arm Reaching Movements

•Motor imagery and physical practices improve motor performances.•Movement smoothness discriminates between practices.•Online corrections through sensory feedback seems to be essential to improvement movement smoothness. Physical practice (PP) and motor imagery practice (MP) lead to the execution of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience 2022-02, Vol.483, p.24-31
Main Authors: Ruffino, Célia, Rannaud Monany, Dylan, Papaxanthis, Charalambos, Hilt, Pauline M., Gaveau, Jérémie, Lebon, Florent
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arm
Cognitive science
Feedback, Sensory
feedbacks
Imagery, Psychotherapy
Imagination
internal models
motor imagery
motor learning
Movement
movement smoothness
Neuroscience
Psychology
Psychomotor Performance
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Summary:•Motor imagery and physical practices improve motor performances.•Movement smoothness discriminates between practices.•Online corrections through sensory feedback seems to be essential to improvement movement smoothness. Physical practice (PP) and motor imagery practice (MP) lead to the execution of fast and accurate arm movements. However, there is currently no information about the influence of MP on movement smoothness, nor about which performance parameters best discriminate these practices. In the current study, we assessed motor performances with an arm pointing task with constrained precision before and after PP (n = 15), MP (n = 15), or no practice (n = 15). We analyzed gains between Pre- and Post-Test for five performance parameters: movement duration, mean and maximal velocities, total displacements, and the number of velocity peaks characterizing movement smoothness. The results showed an improvement of performance after PP and MP for all parameters, except for total displacements. The gains for movement duration, and mean and maximal velocities were statistically higher after PP and MP than after no practice, and comparable between practices. However, motor gains for the number of velocity peaks were higher after PP than MP, suggesting that movements were smoother after PP than after MP. A discriminant analysis also identified the number of velocity peaks as the most relevant parameter that differentiated PP from MP. The current results provide evidence that PP and MP specifically modulate movement smoothness during arm reaching tasks. This difference may rely on online corrections through sensory feedback integration, available during PP but not during MP.
ISSN:0306-4522
1873-7544
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2021.12.022