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Simulation is first examined in the domains of visual and motor imagery, where brain imaging confirms that many of the same regions are activated in both visual imagery and vision, and in motor imagery and motor execution. An analogous use of simulation characteristically occurs in high-level mindreading. Since an important stage of simulation for mindreading requires reflection on one’s own current states, it is confirming evidence that neuroimaging studies find loci of activation in mindreading tasks that are also found in self-reflective thought. A distinctive feature of simulation is that it invites the risk that one’s own genuine states will contaminate the process; so it is further confirming evidence that mindreading studies consistently find pronounced egocentric errors. High-level mindreading involves assignment of contentful states, and content assignment follows the procedure predicted by simulation theory, viz., default use of one’s own concepts and combinatorial operations in assigning contents to others.

This chapter provides an overview of how motor imagery can aid in the rehabilitation of patients. It focuses on the behavioural and kinematic effects of imagery following neurologic disorders. It explains how to select groups of patients that could benefit from a therapeutic approach using motor imagery and why motor imagery may be helpful during the different stages of the rehabilitation process. It details the process of integrating motor imagery into classical rehabilitation programmes, as well as data regarding the appropriate delivery and dosing of mental practice, in order to ascertain the efficiency of this technique during the rehabilitation process.

This chapter demonstrates whether motor imagery accuracy and vividness may be estimated using a set of several indicators and psychological, behavioural, and physiological recordings. It examines whether the different neurophysiological methods may be combined to evaluate individual ability to form accurate mental images.

This chapter explains that the effects of motor imagery on performance and on motor skill learning are well-established. It reviews the literature providing evidence that imagery may be used during different stages of the motor learning process and that this technique may help to reach several different outcomes during the preparation phase preceding a competitive event.

This chapter focuses on the individual ability to imagine the physical execution of an action, for example, considering the body as a generator of acting forces. It describes neuroimaging results by integrating a discussion on the structural equivalence between motor imagery and motor execution. It demonstrates that motor imagery and motor execution share many anatomical substrates but are not completely overlapping, especially when sensorial cues on which motor imagery is constructed are considered. It explores the contribution of the primary motor cortex to motor imagery.

This chapter examines whether motor imagery may facilitate corticospinal activity in the areas corresponding to the muscles involved in the imagined movement. It notes that neuroimaging data provide evidence that the increase in brain activity is specific to the representation of the body part whose movement is imagined. It demonstrates that the facilitation of corticospinal excitability during motor imagery is associated with specific reductions in intracortical inhibition.

This chapter focuses on the brain-computer interface (BCI), a system that allows its user to interact with his environment without the use of muscular activity as, for example, hand, foot, or mouth movement. Topics discussed include components defining a BCI, motor imagery used as control strategy for a BCI, BCI training, BCI application for severely paralyzed patients, BCI-based control of spelling systems, and BCI-based control of functional electrical stimulation in tetraplegic patients.

The ability to forecast the likely consequences of our actions accurately is an important component of adaptive behavior that has been approached from several distinct theoretical perspectives. Relatively little, however, is known about the neural mechanisms involved in generating these predictions. This chapter focuses on recent work concerning the prospective selection of grasping actions. Even in the complete absence of movement, results suggest that determining how to engage an object with the hands or a recently mastered tool increases activity in parietal and premotor areas known to participate in the sensorimotor control of grasp. One possibility is that these brain regions, along with the cerebellum, are involved in generating long-range forecasts of the sensory consequences of movements when motor commands are inhibited. The chapter considers modifications to putative feedforward mechanisms involved in motor control that might extend their temporal range, and the potential implications of this hypothesis for our understanding the relationship between affordance perception and motor imagery.

This chapter focuses on mental imagery. It discusses the ways that imagery in various modes — particularly visual and motor imagery — are systematically related to their perceptual counterparts. It argues that motor imagery is a form of perceptual imagery.

This chapter discusses how to select groups of patients that could benefit from a therapeutic approach including motor imagery. It considers that motor imagery is impaired in patients with Parkinson's disease. It examines whether similar or distinct neural networks are recruited during motor imagery in patients with Parkinson's disease and healthy individuals. It evaluates the effectiveness of using motor imagery during motor rehabilitation, as well as the effect of surgical treatments on motor imagery in patients with Parkinson's disease.

This chapter reviews the literature evidencing that motor imagery and observation can modulate skill. It considers the neuroscientific processes thought to be involved in physical movement skill acquisition and modulation. It evaluates the case for movement imagery and observation, supporting change within the neuronal system through similar processes.

This chapter describes and illustrates the electroencephalographic changes following motor imagery practice. Specifically, it considers the sensorimotor activation and deactivation through event-related (de)synchronization pattern recordings. It shows that measuring the neuronal activity with high temporal resolution brings researchers a reliable tool to study the time-course of short-lasting changes of neuronal activity in distinct time windows before, during, and after motor imagery. It evaluates the effectiveness of employing multimodal techniques — combining functional magnetic resonance imagery and electroencephalography — to study the neuronal processes engaged in motor imagery.

This chapter explores a topic of research that has received inconsistent results, hence resulting in interesting, but opposite, insights into the nature of motor imagery. It reviews the papers highlighting the lack of muscular activity during motor imagery of an effortful movement, supporting the central explanation of motor imagery. It also provides evidence that motor imagery may be accompanied by a subliminal electromyographic activity, and that the nature of this muscular activity may differ as a function of muscle contraction and load constraints related to movement characteristics. It discusses these inconsistent findings, with particular attention on the neural origin of these peripheral changes and the inhibition of the action during imagined movements.

This chapter explores the experimental studies investigating motor imagery through the recording of autonomic nervous system activity. It outlines the goals and methods of such peripheral recordings in studying mental processes. It also discusses how the motor commands sent to the autonomic effectors are facilitated during motor imagery, whereas the direct voluntary commands transmitted through the pyramidal tract are at least partially inhibited.

Movement and motor imagery are accompanied by changes in rhythmic activity recorded over the sensorimotor cortex. Decreases and increases in these sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) are referred as event-related desynchronization and event-related synchronization, respectively. These changes are typically somatotopically localized. Over the past twenty years, many studies have shown that SMR changes associated with motor imagery can serve as useful control signals for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). This chapter discusses BCI usage of SMRs. It begins by reviewing their nature and basic characteristics. It then addresses the issues critical for recording and analyzing them, and reviews their existing and possible future BCI applications.

This chapter provides a review of the main results of neuroimaging experiments that have examined the neural underpinning of mental imagery and its comparison with visual perception. It explores how visual, auditory, and motor imagery work. It focuses on a new research area, the use of imagery in stimulating the social world.

This chapter focuses on the use of mental and/or motor imagery in patients with early and late onset blindness. A review of literature indicates that blind people are able to form mental images, even though they do not use the same strategies as sighted people. It also discusses whether early and late blind subjects make use of distinct body representation during motor imagery. It examines how blind patients keep the ability to form mental image.

This chapter focuses on the neuroimaging studies dealing with motor imagery and neurorehabilitation. It explores the functional relation of imagery to hemiparesis. It highlights the basic principles of plasticity, followed by the promise of motor imagery for hemiparesis recovery.

This chapter explores the potential role of mental and/or motor imagery during the acquisition of surgical skills, for example, the training and maturation of surgeons. It examines the data showing that acquisition and performance of emergency procedure can be improved by the use of imagery. It provides some guidelines for the implementation of imagery in surgical procedures.