The Neurofunctional Architecture of Motor Imagery

Abstract

The remarkable ability of the human brain to mentally simulate sensations and actions has become a major focus of research during the last three decades. Such mental simulation process is called mental imagery and resembles perception, but without the immediate actual corre‐ sponding sensory input. Typically, mental imagery is often referred to as the experience of seeing with the mind's eye, hearing with the mind's ear. In other words, mental images could be generated from any sensorial system. Imagery experience is usually understood as evoca‐ tion, copy, or reconstruction of actual perceptual experience from the long term memory systems, which is first recalled and then internally reproduced within working memory. At other times, participants may also anticipate possible or forthcoming events through imagery as a consequence of what they are expecting. A key feature of this simulation process is that it gives the ability to mentally rehearse motor acts without overt body movement, which is known as the motor imagery (MI) experience. Practically, MI is more often used when the whole human body or body segments are involved, hence requiring participants to imagine the body as the generator of acting forces and not only the effects of these forces on the external world. In this latter case, the information from the body is mainly used to build the mental image of the movement, e.g. tactile or any kind of proprioceptive data, from the muscles, the joints or the inner ear. In the wealth of motor learning literature, it is now well-established that MI is a valuable complement to physical practice to enhance cognitive and motor performance (Driskell et al., 1994; Guillot & Collet, 2008), as well as to promote motor recovery (Sharma, Pomeroy, & Baron, 2006; de Vries & Mulder, 2007; Di Rienzo et al., 2014a). Interestingly, different types of MI can be described and easily combined. While people commonly report using visual imagery (either through a first-person or third-person perspective), auditory imagery, and kinaesthet‐ ic imagery (Kosslyn et al., 1990), each perceptual modality can be accompanied by imagery. On the other hand, and with reference to perception, mental imagery combines several cues from

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