Imagery of movements immediately following performance allows learning of motor skills that interfere.

ABSTRACT: Motor imagery, that is the mental rehearsal of a motor skill, can lead to improvements when performing the same skill. Here we show a powerful and complementary role, in which motor imagery of different movements after actually performing a skill allows learning that is not possible without imagery. We leverage a well-studied motor learning task in which subjects reach in the presence of a dynamic (force-field) perturbation. When two opposing perturbations are presented alternately for the same physical movement, there is substantial interference, preventing any learning. However, when the same physical movement is associated with follow-through movements that differ for each perturbation, both skills can be learned. Here we show that when subjects perform the skill and only imagine the fo

SUBMITTER: Sheahan HR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6156339 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature