Neural Suppression Elicited During Motor Imagery Following the Observation of Biological Motion From Point-Light Walker Stimuli

Abstract

Introduction: Advantageous effects of biological motion (BM) detection, a low-perceptual mechanism that allows the rapid recognition and understanding of spatiotemporal characteristics of movement via salient kinematics information, can be amplified when combined with motor imagery (MI), i.e., the mental simulation of motor acts. According to Jeannerod’s neurostimulation theory, asynchronous firing and reduction of mu and beta rhythm oscillations, referred to as suppression over the sensorimotor area, are sensitive to both MI and action observation (AO) of BM. Yet, not many studies investigated the use of BM stimuli using combined AO-MI tasks. In this study, we assessed the neural response in the form of event-related synchronization and desynchronization (ERD/S) patterns following the observation of point-light-walkers and concordant MI, as compared to MI alone.Methods: Twenty right-handed healthy participants accomplished the experimental task by observing BM stimuli and subsequently performing the same movement using kinesthetic MI (walking, cycling, and jumping conditions). We recorded an electroencephalogram (EEG) with 32 channels and performed time-frequency analysis on alpha (8–13 Hz) and beta (18–24 Hz) frequency bands during the MI task. A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to test statistical significance among conditions and electrodes of interest.Results: The results revealed significant ERD/S patterns in the alpha frequency band between conditions and electrode positions. Post hoc comparisons showed significant differences between condition 1 (walking) and condition 3 (jumping) over the left primary motor cortex. For the beta band, a significantly less difference in ERD patterns (p < 0.01) was detected only between condition 3 (jumping) and condition 4 (reference).Discussion: Our results confirmed that the observation of BM combined with MI elicits a neural suppression, although just in the case of jumping. This is in line with previous findings of AO and MI (AOMI) eliciting a neural suppression for simulated whole-body movements. In the last years, increasing evidence started to support the integration of AOMI training as an adjuvant neurorehabilitation tool in Parkinson’s disease (PD).Conclusion: We concluded that using BM stimuli in AOMI training could be promising, as it promotes attention to kinematic features and imitative motor learning.

Activation Patterns of Functional Brain Network in Response to Action Observation-Induced and Non-Induced Motor Imagery of Swallowing: A Pilot Study

“…Previous investigations on limb motor imagery have reported that short-term motor imagery could induce the ERD pattern in the contralateral brain cortex and ERS in the ipsilateral brain cortex, while long-term (5 s) motor imagery caused the ERS pattern [ 57 , 58 ]. Grazia et al have reported that subjects performing 10 s of motor imagery of walking and bicycling after observing the movements showed an ERS pattern in the sensorimotor cortex, which was attributed to the fact that walking and cycling were closer to an automatic movement [ 33 ]. In this research, Figure 2 showed the spatial distribution of ERS/ERD of the whole brain: it showed that ERS predominated in nearly the whole brain in the alpha and beta bands in M-AIG, F-AIG, and CG.…”

“…Due to the band specificity of ERSPs, it was easily observed only at ~10 Hz and ~20 Hz [ 31 ], and in other frequency bands (e.g., delta, theta, and gamma), it tended to show only ERS patterns [ 32 ]. In addition, most studies of motor imagery focused on the alpha and beta bands [ 21 , 33 ]. Therefore, in the present study we only analyzed the alpha and beta bands.…”

Transformer-Based Network with Optimization for Cross-Subject Motor Imagery Identification

“…Motor imagery (MI) EEG signals generated in the motor cortex are one of the most widely studied BCI paradigms [8]. The power of alpha (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13) and beta (14-30 Hz) rhythms is inhibited or promoted in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain and the amplitude of the EEG signal decreases or increases, accompanied by the phenomenon of spectral oscillation when the user imagines or performs an action with their hands, feet, or tongue [9]. MI mainly induce event-related desynchronization (ERD)/Event-related synchronization (ERS) in the alpha and beta bands.…”

Effects of handedness on brain oscillatory activity during imagery and execution of upper limb movements

“…We will specifically look for differences in event-related desynchronization (ERD), which is said to reflect an activation of the brain area concerned and event-related synchronization (ERS), or deactivation of concerned brain areas, as introduced by Pfurtscheller and Da Silva ( 1999 ). ERD/S values are commonly used in recent studies (Wriessnegger et al, 2018 ; Zapała et al, 2021 ; Grazia et al, 2022 ) and are popular as features in MI-based BCI systems (Pfurtscheller and Neuper, 2006 ; Hwang et al, 2013 ; Wierzgała et al, 2018 ; Singh et al, 2021 ). Here, ME is used as a control condition as it is already well known that MI brain activity parallels that of ME (Kraeutner et al, 2014 ), and the underlying neural correlates are quite clear (Pfurtscheller, 2000 ; Neuper et al, 2006 ; Nakayashiki et al, 2014 ).…”