title: Motor imagery and cortico-spinal excitability: A review.
abstract: Motor imagery (MI) has received a lot of interest during the last decades as its chronic or acute use has demonstrated several effects on improving sport performances or skills. The development of neuroimagery techniques also helped further our understanding of the neural correlates underlying MI. While some authors showed that MI, motor execution and action observation activated similar motor cortical regions, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies brought great insights on the role of the primary motor cortex and on the activation of the cortico-spinal pathway during MI. After defining MI and describing the TMS technique, a short report of MI activities only at cortical level is provided. Then, a main focus on the specificities of cortico-spinal modulations during MI, investigated by TMS, is provided. Finally, a brief overview of sub-cortical mechanisms gives importance to the activation of peripheral neural structures during MI.
authors.affiliation: a INSERM U1093, Faculté des sciences du sport , Université de Bourgogne , Dijon , France.
authors.forename: Sidney
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grosprêtre
authors.affiliation: a INSERM U1093, Faculté des sciences du sport , Université de Bourgogne , Dijon , France.
authors.forename: Célia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ruffino
authors.affiliation: a INSERM U1093, Faculté des sciences du sport , Université de Bourgogne , Dijon , France.
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lebon
mesh_terms: D054874:Athletic Performance / Q000523:psychology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000502:physiology; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
keywords: Transcranial magnetic stimulation; motor control; neuroscience; performance