Abstract
Motor imagery (MI), the mental rehearsal of movement, can drive the acquisition and improvement of motor skills. How motor skills can be acquired or improved without movement execution and the sensory information it affords is unclear. Moreover, the covert nature of MI necessitates an understanding of the factors that impact its effectiveness in practice and/or the ability to use MI for learning. This point regarding its use is particularly pertinent in clinical settings, where brain lesions can impede or impair ability to engage in MI-based interventions. In this symposium we discuss MI for skill acquisition in healthy participants and neurological populations. Speakers will review past evidence and present new data concerning mechanisms of skill acquisition through MI and how such mechanisms are altered after stroke. Factors that influence learning through MI, such as prior visual/motor experience and individual differences in imagery ability will be discussed. The first talk explores the development of MI based on observational and physical practice and the dependency of kinesthetic MI on a visual representation. The second talk will provide a review of some behavioural and neurophysiological methods used to assess motor system activation during MI. The third talk explores the presence of internal models and error detection/correction mechanisms in MI. In the final talk, factors which moderate the effectiveness of MI interventions after stroke will be considered. Together, this series of work will provide new insight and provide recommendations towards the understanding of MI as a modality of skill acquisition.
