Alterations in Resting-State after Motor Imagery Training: A Pilot Investigation with Eigenvector Centrality Mapping

Abstract

Motor training, including motor execution and motor imagery training, has been indicated to be effective in mental disorders rehabilitation and motor skill learning. In related neuroimaging studies, resting-state has been employed as a new perspective besides task-state to examine the neural mechanism of motor execution training. However, motor imagery training, as another part of motor training, has been few investigated. To address this issue, eigenvector centrality mapping (ECM) was applied to explore resting-state before and after motor imagery training. ECM could assess the computational measurement of eigenvector centrality for capturing intrinsic neural architecture on a voxel-wise level without any prior assumptions. Our results revealed that the significant increases of eigenvector centrality were in the precuneus and medial frontal gyrus (MFG) for the experimental group but not for the control group. These alterations may be associated with the sensorimotor information integration and inner state modulation of motor imagery training.