Imagery of Voluntary Movement of Fingers, Toes, and Tongue Activates Corresponding Body-Part-Specific Motor Representations

1 Division of Human Brain Research, Department of Neuroscience and 2 Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Woman and Child Health, Karolinska Institutet, S-17176 Stockholm, Sweden; and 3 C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, University of Düsseldorf,40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Submitted 11 De...

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Published in:Journal of neurophysiology 2003-11, Vol.90 (5), p.3304-3316
Main Authors: Ehrsson, H. Henrik, Geyer, Stefan, Naito, Eiichi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Brain Mapping - methods
Female
Fingers - physiology
Humans
Imagination - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Motor Cortex - physiology
Movement - physiology
Toes - physiology
Tongue - physiology
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Summary:1 Division of Human Brain Research, Department of Neuroscience and 2 Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Woman and Child Health, Karolinska Institutet, S-17176 Stockholm, Sweden; and 3 C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, University of Düsseldorf,40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Submitted 11 December 2002; accepted in final form 20 July 2003 We investigate whether imagery of voluntary movements of different body parts activates somatotopical sections of the human motor cortices. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect the cortical activity when 7 healthy subjects imagine performing repetitive (0.5-Hz) flexion/extension movements of the right fingers or right toes, or horizontal movements of the tongue. We also collected functional images when the subjects actually executed these movements and used these data to define somatotopical representations in the motor areas. In this study, we relate the functional activation maps to cytoarchitectural population maps of areas 4a, 4p, and 6 in the same standard anatomical space. The important novel findings are 1 ) that imagery of hand movements specifically activates the hand sections of the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) and the contralateral dorsal premotor cortex (area 6) and a hand representation located in the caudal cingulate motor area and the most ventral part of the supplementary motor area; 2 ) that when imagining making foot movements, the foot zones of the posterior part of the contralateral supplementary motor area (area 6) and the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) are active; and 3 ) that imagery of tongue movements activates the tongue region of the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex bilaterally (areas 4a, 4p, and 6). These results demonstrate that imagery of action engages the somatotopically organized sections of the primary motor cortex in a systematic manner as well as activating some body-part-specific representations in the nonprimary motor areas. Thus the content of the mental motor image, in this case the body part, is reflected in the pattern of motor cortical activation. Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: H. H. Ehrsson, Functional Imaging Laboratory, Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuro-science, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK (E-mail: H.Ehrsson{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk ).
ISSN:0022-3077
1522-1598
DOI:10.1152/jn.01113.2002