Abstract
How motor maps are organized while imagining actions is an intensely debated issue. It is particularly unclear whether motor imagery relies on action‐specific representations in premotor and posterior parietal cortices. This study tackled this issue by attempting to decode the content of motor imagery from spatial patterns of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signals recorded in the frontoparietal motor imagery network. During fMRI‐scanning, 20 right‐handed volunteers worked on three experimental conditions and one baseline condition. In the experimental conditions, they had to imagine three different types of right‐hand actions: an aiming movement, an extension–flexion movement, and a squeezing movement. The identity of imagined actions was decoded from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals they evoked in premotor and posterior parietal cortices using multivoxel pattern analysis. Results showed that the content of motor imagery (i.e., the action type) could be decoded significantly above chance level from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals in both frontal (PMC, M1) and parietal areas (SPL, IPL, IPS). An exploratory searchlight analysis revealed significant clusters motor‐ and motor‐associated cortices, as well as in visual cortices. Hence, the data provide evidence that patterns of activity within premotor and posterior parietal cortex vary systematically with the specific type of hand action being imagined. Hum Brain Mapp 37:81–93, 2016. © 2015 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Highlights
Over the last two decades, motor simulation phenomena have attracted a great deal of attention in the field of cognitive neuroscience
Our findings show that decoding of motor imagery (MI) content is possible for the left premotor region, especially its dorsal section, the posterior parietal region of both hemispheres, the left intraparietal sulcus, the right inferior parietal lobe, the superior parietal lobe of both hemispheres, and the left M1
In a previous univariate fMRI study conducted in our lab [Lorey et al, 2014], we found action-specific activation sites in the premotor and posterior parietal region when observing hand and foot actions that differed with respect to their action goals
Summary
Over the last two decades, motor simulation phenomena have attracted a great deal of attention in the field of cognitive neuroscience One pioneer in this discussion was Marc Jeannerod [2001] who postulated a functional equivalence between imagining and executing an action in his simulation theory. It has been proposed that MI is a simulation that uses the motor system as a substrate [Lange et al, 2006; Jeannerod 2001] This has been supported by several neuroimaging studies showing that roughly the same brain areas are involved in both motor execution and MI [Decety et al, 1994; Deiber et al, 1996; Hanakawa et al, 2008; Lotze et al, 1999; Porro et al, 1996]. This neural network is believed to be organized around the following motor and motor-related regions: the supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortex (PMC), the primary motor cortex (M1), posterior parietal regions such as the inferior (IPL) and the superior parietal lobe (SPL), the basal ganglia (BG), and the cerebellum [Guillot et al, 2008; Lotze et al, 1999; Munzert et al, 2009]
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