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Abstract
Bilateral movement has been reported to enhance actual motor performance more than unilateral movement and increase motor cortex activation more than unilateral movement. We hypothesized that bilateral motor imagery would result in greater improvements in event-related desynchronization (ERD) amplitude and ball rotation performance than unilateral motor imagery. Forty healthy young adults participated in this study. The mental practice session was performed in the unilateral hand condition (right and left hands) and bilateral hand condition for four blocks. ERD in mental practice was calculated using electroencephalography (EEG). The ball rotations were compared between the pre-and post-tests of mental practice. The results showed a greater improvement in actual motor performance with unilateral motor imagery than with bilateral motor imagery. ERD analysis showed no significant differences in multiple comparisons. These results did not support this hypothesis. Nonetheless, the present study showed that unilateral movements resulted in greater performance gains than bilateral movements, suggesting that bilateral motor imagery may have additional control processes similar to actual movements.
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Kazuya Umeno
Kazuya Umeno received the M.S degree from University of Human Arts and Sciences, Japan, in 2015. He is currently in the Graduate school of Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, Japan. And he is currently a lecturer in Faculty of Health Science, Tokoha University. His current research interests focus on stroke rehabilitation, and EEG neurofeedback development.
Yoshihiro Itaguchi
Yoshihiro Itaguchi (Non-member) received the Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Waseda University, Japan, in 2013. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Psychology Department of Keio University. His current research interests include the interaction of body, movement, brain, and cognition in human.