Mapping motor representations with positron emission tomography
Abstract
Brain activity was mapped in normal subjects during passive observation of the movements of an 'alien' hand and while imagining grasping objects with their own hand. None of the tasks required actual movement. Shifting from one mental task to the other greatly changed the pattern of brain activation. During observation of hand movements, activation was mainly found in visual cortical areas, but also in subcortical areas involved in motor behaviour, such as the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. During motor imagery, cortical and subcortical areas related to motor preparation and programming were strongly activated. These data support the notion that motor learning during observation of movements and mental practice involves rehearsal of neural pathways related to cognitive stages of motor control.
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Temporally constrained MEG results align with PET and fMRI observations of parietal activity during motor imagery.
“Our temporally constrained MEG results converge with the observation of parietal activity during motor imagery obtained in PET studies (Decety et al., 1994; Deiber et al., 1998) and fMRI studies (Lotze et al., 1999; Gerardin et al., 2000; Ehrsson et al., 2003; Hanakawa et al., 2003; Dechent et al., 2004; Meister et al., 2004).”
From Mental imagery of speech and movement implicates the dynamics of internal forward models (2010) · cites this paper as Decety et al., 1994
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- Authors
- Decety, J., Perani, D., Jeannerod, M., Bettinardi, V., Tadary, B., Woods, R., Mazziotta, J. C., & Fazio, F.
- Affiliations
- University of Milan (IT)
- Inserm (FR)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1994-10
- Volume
- 371
- Issue
- 6498
- Pages
- 600-602
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2011246618
- Cited by
- 976
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 48
- FWCI
- 56.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies
- Keywords
- motor representations, motor imagery, grasping, visual cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum, motor learning, mental practice, motor control, brain activation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Hand, Humans, Imagination, Male, Motor Activity, Tomography, Emission-Computed, Vision, Ocular
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