Up-regulation of supplementary motor area activation with fMRI Neurofeedback during motor imagery

Al-Wasity, S., Vogt, S., Vuckovic, A. and Pollick, F. E. (2021) Up-regulation of supplementary motor area activation with fMRI Neurofeedback during motor imagery. eNeuro, 8(1), 0377-18. (doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0377-18.2020) (PMID:33376115) (PMCID:PMC7877466)

Abstract

fMRI Neurofeedback (NF) is a promising tool to study the relationship between behaviour and brain activity. It enables people to self-regulate their brain signal. Here we applied fMRI NF to train healthy participants to increase activity in their supplementary motor area (SMA) during a Motor Imagery (MI) task of complex body movements while they received a continuous visual feedback signal. This signal represented the activity of participants’ localized SMA regions in the NF group and a pre-recorded signal in the control group (sham feedback). In the NF group only, results showed a gradual increase in SMA-related activity across runs. This up-regulation was largely restricted to the SMA, whilst other regions of the motor network showed no, or only marginal NF effects. In addition, we found behavioural changes, i.e., shorter reaction times in a go/no-go task after the NF training only. These results suggest that NF can assist participants to develop greater control over a specifically targeted motor region involved in motor skill learning. The results contribute to a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of SMA NF based on MI with a direct implication for rehabilitation of motor dysfunctions.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Pollick, Professor Frank and Al-Wasity, Mr Salim and Vuckovic, Dr Aleksandra
• Authors: Al-Wasity, S., Vogt, S., Vuckovic, A., and Pollick, F. E.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity; College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
• Journal Name: eNeuro
• Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
• ISSN: 2373-2822
• ISSN (Online): 2373-2822
• Published Online: 29 December 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 Al-Wasity et al.
• First Published: First published in eNeuro 8(1):0377-18
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license