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Contribution of the primary motor cortex to motor imagery: A subthreshold TMS study by Barbara Pelgrims; Nicolas Michaux; Etienne Olivier; Michael Andres is a Neuroscience article available to read on EtoBox.

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## Abstract Motor imagery (MI) mostly activates the same brain regions as movement execution (ME) including the primary motor cortex (Brodmann area 4, BA4). However, whether BA4 is functionally relevant for MI remains controversial. The finding that MI tasks are impaired by BA4 virtual lesions induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) supports this view, though previous studies do not permit to exclude that BA4 is also involved in other processes such as hand recognition. Additionally, previous works largely underestimated the possible negative consequences of TMS‐induced muscle twitches on MI task performance. Here we investigated the role of BA4 in MI by interfering with the function of the left or right BA4 in healthy subjects performing a MI task in which they had to make laterality judgements on rotated hand drawings. We used a subthreshold repetitive TMS protocol and monitored electromyographic activity to exclude undesirable effects of hand muscle twitches. We found that BA4 virtual lesions selectively increased reaction times in laterality judgments on hand drawings, leaving unaffected a task of equal difficulty, involving judgments on letters. Interestingly, the e

Who reads Contribution of the primary motor cortex to motor imagery: A subthreshold TMS study?

Author

Barbara Pelgrims; Nicolas Michaux; Etienne Olivier; Michael Andres

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (John Wiley & Sons); John Wiley & Sons Inc.; Wiley; Research Square (ISSN 1065-9471)

Published

2010

Language

EN

Field

Neuroscience (Life Sciences)