title: Motor imagery in unipolar major depression.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Motor imagery is a potential tool to investigate action representation, as it can provide insights into the processes of action planning and preparation. Recent studies suggest that depressed patients present specific impairment in mental rotation. The present study was designed to investigate the influence of unipolar depression on motor imagery ability.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fourteen right-handed patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for unipolar depression were compared to 14 matched healthy controls. Imagery ability was accessed by the timing correspondence between executed and imagined movements during a pointing task, involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off paradigm).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to controls, depressed patients showed marked motor slowing on both actual and imagined movements. Furthermore, we observed greater temporal discrepancies between actual and mental movements in depressed patients than in healthy controls. Lastly, depressed patients modulated, to some extent, mental movement durations according to the difficulty of the task, but this modulation was not as strong as that of healthy subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that unipolar depression significantly affects the higher stages of action planning and point out a selective decline of motor prediction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; EA 481 Neurosciences, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; FondaMental Foundation , Créteil , France.
authors.forename: Djamila
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bennabi
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; EA 481 Neurosciences, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; Centre d'Investigation Clinique en Innovation Technologique de Besançon (CIC-IT 808) INSERM , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Monnin
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; EA 481 Neurosciences, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; FondaMental Foundation , Créteil , France ; Centre d'Investigation Clinique en Innovation Technologique de Besançon (CIC-IT 808) INSERM , Besançon , France ; FHU Integrated Center for Research in Inflammatory Diseases (InCREASe) INSERM , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Haffen
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; EA 481 Neurosciences, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, University Hospital of Besançon , Besançon , France ; Centre d'Investigation Clinique en Innovation Technologique de Besançon (CIC-IT 808) INSERM , Besançon , France ; FHU Integrated Center for Research in Inflammatory Diseases (InCREASe) INSERM , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vandel
authors.affiliation: UFR STAPS, Université de Bourgogne , Dijon , France ; Unité 1093, Cognition, Action et Plasticité Sensorimotrice, INSERM , Dijon , France ; Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia , Genoa , Italy ; Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) , Dijon , France.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pozzo
authors.affiliation: UFR STAPS, Université de Bourgogne , Dijon , France ; Unité 1093, Cognition, Action et Plasticité Sensorimotrice, INSERM , Dijon , France.
authors.forename: Charalambos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Papaxanthis
keywords: major depressive disorder; mental chronometry; motor imagery; movement speed; psychomotor retardation; speed/accuracy trade off