Motor imagery is a mental process of rehearsing movement in the brain without muscle contraction or movement, and since motor imagery and actual movement have many common neural substrates, clinical application is expected. .
In order for motor imagery to improve motor skill, it has been said that how to image movement is important.In particular, kinesthetic imagery, which imagines the sensations and experiences of movements, is considered useful, but this imagery strategy relies on the sensations of muscle movements that can be achieved after training.Therefore, the implementation difficulty was high, and it was one of the obstacles in clinical application.
Assistant Professor Yuki Fukumoto of Kansai University of Health Sciences has been conducting research on how to effectively practice motor imagery in the laboratory of Professor Toshiaki Suzuki, dean of the graduate school of the same university.This time, Assistant Professor Marina Todo, Lecturer Sumifumi Fumino, Professor Hirohisa Yoneda, and Professor Makiko Tani also joined, and we tried to elucidate the conditions for making kinesthetic images more feasible.
As a result of the research, it was clarified that adding information related to exercise in addition to the implementation of kinesthetic imagery reduced the difficulty of implementation, and facilitated the improvement of motor skills.The findings obtained from this study are considered to be important findings for the clinical application of motor imagery.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Differences in motor imagery strategy change behavioral outcome
