Motor imagery practice during arm-immobilization benefits sensorimotor cortical functions and plasticity-related sleep features

Abstract

Motor imagery (MI) is known to engage motor networks and could compensate for the maladaptive neuroplasticity elicited by immobilization. This hypothesis and associated underlying neural mechanisms remain underexplored. Here, we investigated how MI practice during 11 h of arm-immobilization influences sensorimotor and cortical representations of the hands, as well as sleep. Fourteen participants were first tested after a normal day, followed by two 11-h periods of immobilization, either with concomitant MI treatment or control tasks. Data revealed that MI prevented the consequences of immobilization: (i) alteration of the sensorimotor representation of hands, (ii) decrease of cortical excitability over the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to arm-immobilization, and (iii) reduction of sleep spindles over both M1s. Furthermore, (iv) the time spent in REM sleep was significantly longer after MI. These results support that implementing MI during immobilization can limit the deleterious effects of limb disuse, at several levels of sensorimotor functioning.

Dream engineering: Simulating worlds through sensory stimulation

“…Further, EMS could trigger motor imagery during sleep, which likewise has been associated with enhanced motor learning (e.g., in lucid dreams, Schädlich et al, 2017 ). In one recent study, Debarnot, Perrault, Sterpenich, Legendre, Huber, Guillot, and Schwartz (2019) found that waking motor imagery practice during arm immobilization led to increased subsequent REM sleep and improved adaptation the next day. The use of EMS to augment motor dream imagery thus offers an intriguing application of dream engineering for physical rehabilitation.…”