Effect of Motor Imagery on Serial Reaction Time Task Performance in Healthy Adults: A Randomized Crossover-Controlled Trial

TL;DR

This study found that combining motor imagery with physical practice improves reaction time and brain activity during a motor learning task in healthy adults.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel combination of motor imagery and physical practice to enhance motor learning outcomes.

Findings

All conditions showed improved reaction time post-training.

Combination and individual methods reduced brain activity in specific motor regions.

Physical practice alone increased primary motor cortex activity.

Abstract

Introduction: This study used a serial reaction time task (SRTT) to explore motor learning, especially in complex sequential movements, and aimed to uncover the unique contributions of Motor imagery (MI) in optimising motor learning outcomes.

Methods: We aimed to explore the effect of MI or physical practice (PP) alone or a combination (CB) of both methods on SRTT in terms of premotor time, reaction time, accuracy rate, and brain activity immediately after training. All participants collected data on RT, the accuracy rate of response, and brain activity.

Results: Remarkable improvements in RT were observed post-training across all conditions, whereas the correctness rate remained unchanged. A marked reduction in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity was noted in all conditions, with decreased activity in the premotor and supplementary motor cortices (PMC and SMA) in the MI and CB conditions. Notably, only the PP condition showed increased activity in the primary motor cortex (M1).

Conclusion: Our study underscores the significant enhancement resulting from CB conditions, showing similar improvements between the MI and PP methods. This suggests that both the combination and individual use of MI or PP can enhance physical performance, as evidenced by the improvements in reaction time and brain activity observed in our study.

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