Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association  2001;40(6):1247-1250

Neural Substrates of Motor Imagery: Event-related Functional MRI Study.

Seung Schik YOO 1 ; Byung Gil CHOI ; Kyu In CHUNG ; Chang Uk LEE

Affiliations

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Keywords

Motor imagery; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Brain mapping; Ideation; BOLD; Event-related design

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVES: We report event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) methodology to investigate human brain activity during motor imagery. METHODS: A 1.5 Tesla clinical MR scanner was used in the acquisition of a series of T2* weighted MR images covering the whole brain. Blood oxygenation level-dependent(BOLD) signal changes associated with the imagery event were subsequently detected while healthy right-handed subjects imagined clenching of a right hand cued by auditory stimulus. RESULTS: Group analysis across nine right-handed subjects revealed activations in the medial and superior frontal gyri, cuneus, insula, middle/superior temporal gyri, and anterior cingulate gyri. Bilateral primary motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas exhibited event-related MR signal changes. Although unilateral hand clenching was imagined, bilateral activation of eloquent motor areas was observed. The proposed method also allowed for the visualization of subcortical areas, such as putamen, globus pallidus and thalamus, responsive to the event of motor imagery. CONCLUSION: The major cortical and subcortical areas in the motor pathways were identified and visualized during motor imagery event. Our results suggest that motor imagery and actual movement share common neural substrates.