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Inhibitory mechanisms in motor imagery: disentangling different forms of inhibition using action mode switching

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Abstract

In motor imagery, probably several inhibitory mechanisms prevent actual movements: global inhibition, effector-specific inhibition, and inhibition retrieved during target processing. We investigated factors that may influence those mechanisms. In an action mode switching paradigm, participants imagined and executed movements from home buttons to target buttons. We analysed sequential effects. Activation (due to execution) or inhibition (due to imagination) in the previous trial should affect performance in the subsequent trial, enabling conclusions about inhibitory mechanisms in motor imagery. In Experiment 1, evidence for global and effector-specific inhibition was observed. Evidence for inhibition retrieved during target processing was inconclusive. Data patterns were similar when start and end of the imagined movements were indicated with an effector that was part of the imagined movement (hand) and with a different effector (feet). In Experiment 2, we ruled out that the use of biological stimuli (left/right hands in Experiment 1) to indicate the effector causes sequential effects attributed to effector-specific inhibition, by using uppercase letters (R, L). As in Experiment 1, evidence for effector-specific inhibition was observed. In conclusion, we could reliably disentangle several inhibitory mechanisms in motor imagery.

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Notes

  1. In execution trials of the foot group we have data from the release and press of the foot buttons and from the release and press of the home buttons. We compared the data from foot buttons and home buttons for RTs and MTs. No significant differences between the data from foot buttons and home buttons were observed. In imagination trials of the foot group the home buttons were not released. Thus, we used the data from foot buttons to calculate RTs and MTs in all conditions to ensure comparability between imagination and execution.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Alexander Bäuerle, Magdalena Jäger, and Melissa Gapp for their help with data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for Psychology and Medical Sciences, Institute of Psychology, UMIT - Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Hall in Tyrol, Austria

    Victoria K. E. Bart & Martina Rieger

  2. Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Iring Koch

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  1. Victoria K. E. Bart
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Contributions

MR devised the basic ideas. All authors contributed to the conception, the design, and the methodology. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by VKEB. The first draft of the manuscript was written by VKEB. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Victoria K. E. Bart.

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We declare that we have no conflict of interest. We have full control of all primary data and we agree to allow the journal to review our data if requested.

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All procedures performed in the present study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (research committee for scientific and ethical questions, RCSEQ, Hall in Tyrol) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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The data are available at the open science framework, https://osf.io/edx5n/.

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Bart, V.K.E., Koch, I. & Rieger, M. Inhibitory mechanisms in motor imagery: disentangling different forms of inhibition using action mode switching. Psychological Research 85, 1418–1438 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01327-y

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