title: Motor imagery of hand actions: Decoding the content of motor imagery from brain activity in frontal and parietal motor areas.
abstract: How motor maps are organized while imagining actions is an intensely debated issue. It is particularly unclear whether motor imagery relies on action-specific representations in premotor and posterior parietal cortices. This study tackled this issue by attempting to decode the content of motor imagery from spatial patterns of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signals recorded in the frontoparietal motor imagery network. During fMRI-scanning, 20 right-handed volunteers worked on three experimental conditions and one baseline condition. In the experimental conditions, they had to imagine three different types of right-hand actions: an aiming movement, an extension-flexion movement, and a squeezing movement. The identity of imagined actions was decoded from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals they evoked in premotor and posterior parietal cortices using multivoxel pattern analysis. Results showed that the content of motor imagery (i.e., the action type) could be decoded significantly above chance level from the spatial patterns of BOLD signals in both frontal (PMC, M1) and parietal areas (SPL, IPL, IPS). An exploratory searchlight analysis revealed significant clusters motor- and motor-associated cortices, as well as in visual cortices. Hence, the data provide evidence that patterns of activity within premotor and posterior parietal cortex vary systematically with the specific type of hand action being imagined.
authors.affiliation: Bender Institute of Neuroimaging, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pilgramm
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, United Kingdom.|Experimental Psychology, University College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: de Haas
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sports Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Helm
authors.affiliation: Bender Institute of Neuroimaging, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.|Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Muenster, Germany.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zentgraf
authors.affiliation: Bender Institute of Neuroimaging, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stark
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sports Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Jörn
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Munzert
authors.affiliation: Bender Institute of Neuroimaging, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.|Institute for Sports Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Krüger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004576:Electromyography; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: MVPA; action mapping; fMRI; motor cortex; motor imagery