Top

Published in:

01-09-2009 | Movement Disorders - Original Article

Functional MRI in the assessment of cortical activation during gait-related imaginary tasks

Authors: JiunJie Wang, YauYau Wai, YiHsin Weng, KoonKwan Ng, Ying-Zu Huang, Leslie Ying, HaoLi Liu, ChiHong Wang

Published in: Journal of Neural Transmission | Issue 9/2009

Abstract

Imaginary tasks can be used to investigate the neurophysiology of gait. In this study, we explored the cortical control of gait-related imagery in 21 healthy volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Imaginary tasks included gait initiation, stepping over an obstacle, and gait termination. Subjects watched a video clip that showed an actor in gait motion under an event-related design. We detected activation in the supplementary motor area during major gait-related imagery tasks, and especially during gait initiation. During gait termination and stepping over an obstacle, the amount of cortical resources allocated to the imaginary tasks included a large visuomotor network comprising the dorsal and ventral premotor areas. We conclude that our paradigm to study the cortical control of gait may help in elucidating the pathophysiology of higher-level gait disorders.

Allison T, Puce A, McCarthy G (2000) Social perception from visual cues: role of the STS region. Trends Cogn Sci 4(7):267–278PubMedCrossRef

Armstrong DM (1988) The supraspinal control of mammalian locomotion. J Physiol 405:1–37PubMed

Bakker M, de Lange FP, Stevens JA, Toni I, Bloem BR (2007a) Motor imagery of gait: a quantitative approach. Exp Brain Res 179(3):497–504PubMedCrossRef

Bakker M, Verstappen CC, Bloem BR, Toni I (2007b) Recent advances in functional neuroimaging of gait. J Neural Transm 114(10):1323–1331PubMedCrossRef

Buccino G, Binkofski F, Fink GR, Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Gallese V, Seitz RJ, Zilles K, Rizzolatti G, Freund HJ (2001) Action observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study. Eur J Neurosci 13(2):400–404PubMed

Coxon JP, Stinear CM, Byblow WD (2009) Stop and go: the neural basis of selective movement prevention. J Cogn Neurosci 21:1193–1203PubMedCrossRef

Cunnington R, Windischberger C, Deecke L, Moser E (2003) The preparation and readiness for voluntary movement: a high-field event-related fMRI study of the Bereitschafts-BOLD response. Neuroimage 20(1):404–412PubMedCrossRef

Debaere F, Wenderoth N, Sunaert S, Van Hecke P, Swinnen SP (2003) Internal vs external generation of movements: differential neural pathways involved in bimanual coordination performed in the presence or absence of augmented visual feedback. Neuroimage 19(3):764–776PubMedCrossRef

Della Sala S, Francescani A, Spinnler H (2002) Gait apraxia after bilateral supplementary motor area lesion. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 72(1):77–85PubMedCrossRef

do Nascimento OF, Nielsen KD, Voigt M (2005) Influence of directional orientations during gait initiation and stepping on movement-related cortical potentials. Behav Brain Res 161(1):141–154PubMedCrossRef

Genovese C, Lazar N, Nichols T (2002) Thresholding of statistical maps in functional neuroimaging using the false discovery rate. Neuroimage 15(4):870–878PubMedCrossRef

Grezes J, Decety J (2001) Functional anatomy of execution, mental simulation, observation, and verb generation of actions: a meta-analysis. Hum Brain Mapp 12(1):1–19PubMedCrossRef

Grillner S, Wallen P (1985) Central pattern generators for locomotion, with special reference to vertebrates. Annu Rev Neurosci 8:233–261PubMedCrossRef

Hanakawa T, Katsumi Y, Fukuyama H, Honda M, Hayashi T, Kimura J, Shibasaki H (1999) Mechanisms underlying gait disturbance in Parkinson’s disease: a single photon emission computed tomography study. Brain 122(Pt 7):1271–1282PubMedCrossRef

Iseki K, Hanakawa T, Shinozaki J, Nankaku M, Fukuyama H (2008) Neural mechanisms involved in mental imagery and observation of gait. Neuroimage 41(3):1021–1031PubMedCrossRef

Jahn K, Deutschlander A, Stephan T, Strupp M, Wiesmann M, Brandt T (2004) Brain activation patterns during imagined stance and locomotion in functional magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroimage 22(4):1722–1731PubMedCrossRef

Jeannerod M (2001) Neural simulation of action: a unifying mechanism for motor cognition. Neuroimage 14(1 Pt 2):S103–S109PubMedCrossRef

Jeannerod M (2006) Motor cognition: what actions tell to the self. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Jian Y, Winter DA, Ishac MG, Gilchrist L (1993) Trajectory of the body COG and COP during initiation and termination of gait. Gait Posture 1(1):9–22CrossRef

Lancaster JL, Woldorff MG, Parsons LM, Liotti M, Freitas CS, Rainey L, Kochunov PV, Nickerson D, Mikiten SA, Fox PT (2000) Automated Talairach atlas labels for functional brain mapping. Hum Brain Mapp 10(3):120–131PubMedCrossRef

Leung H-C, Cai W (2007) Common and differential ventrolateral prefrontal activity during inhibition of hand and eye movements. J Neurosci 27(37):9893–9900PubMedCrossRef

MacKay-Lyons M (2002) Central pattern generation of locomotion: a review of the evidence. Phys Ther 82(1):69–83PubMed

Malouin F, Richards CL, Jackson PL, Dumas F, Doyon J (2003) Brain activations during motor imagery of locomotor-related tasks: a PET study. Hum Brain Mapp 19(1):47–62PubMedCrossRef

McIntosh RD, McClements KI, Schindler I, Cassidy TP, Birchall D, Milner AD (2004) Avoidance of obstacles in the absence of visual awareness. Proc Biol Sci 271(1534):15–20PubMedCrossRef

Mori S, Matsuyama K, Mori F, Nakajima K (2001) Supraspinal sites that induce locomotion in the vertebrate central nervous system. Adv Neurol 87:25–40PubMed

Munzert J, Lorey B, Zentgraf K (2009) Cognitive motor processes: the role of motor imagery in the study of motor representations. Brain Res Rev 60(2):306–326PubMedCrossRef

Nadeau SE (2007) Gait apraxia: further clues to localization. Eur Neurol 58(3):142–145PubMedCrossRef

Nutt JG, Marsden CD, Thompson PD (1993) Human walking and higher-level gait disorders, particularly in the elderly. Neurology 43(2):268–279PubMed

Patla AE (2004) Adaptive human locomotion: influence of neural, biological, and mechanical factors on control mechanisms. In: Bronstein AM, Brandt T, Woollacott MH, Nutt JG (eds) Clinical disorders of balance, posture and gait, 2nd edn. Arnold, London, pp 20–38

Penny WD, Holmes AJ (2007) Random effects analysis. In: Friston K, Ashburner J, Kiebel S, Nichols T, Penny W (eds) Statistical parametric mapping: the analysis of functional brain images. Academic Press, London, pp 156–165

Picard N, Strick PL (2001) Imaging the premotor areas. Curr Opin Neurobiol 11(6):663–672PubMedCrossRef

Reynolds RF, Day BL (2005) Visual guidance of the human foot during a step. J Physiol 569(Pt 2):677–684PubMedCrossRef

Rice NJ, McIntosh RD, Schindler I, Mon-Williams M, Demonet JF, Milner AD (2006) Intact automatic avoidance of obstacles in patients with visual form agnosia. Exp Brain Res 174(1):176–188PubMedCrossRef

Rizzolatti G, Craighero L (2004) The mirror-neuron system. Annu Rev Neurosci 27:169–192PubMedCrossRef

Rossignol S, Dubuc R, Gossard JP (2006) Dynamic sensorimotor interactions in locomotion. Physiol Rev 86(1):89–154PubMedCrossRef

Santi A, Servos P, Vatikiotis-Bateson E, Kuratate T, Munhall K (2003) Perceiving biological motion: dissociating visible speech from walking. J Cogn Neurosci 15(6):800–809PubMedCrossRef

Schindler I, Rice NJ, McIntosh RD, Rossetti Y, Vighetto A, Milner AD (2004) Automatic avoidance of obstacles is a dorsal stream function: evidence from optic ataxia. Nat Neurosci 7(7):779–784PubMedCrossRef

Sirigu A, Duhamel JR (2001) Motor and visual imagery as two complementary but neurally dissociable mental processes. J Cogn Neurosci 13(7):910–919PubMedCrossRef

Suzuki M, Miyai I, Ono T, Kubota K (2008) Activities in the frontal cortex and gait performance are modulated by preparation. An fNIRS study. Neuroimage 39(2):600–607PubMedCrossRef

Talairach J, Tournoux P (1988) Co-planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain: 3-dimensional proportional system: an approach to medical cerebral imaging. Thieme Medical, Stuttgart, 122 p

Thompson PD (2007) Higher level gait disorders. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 7(4):290–294PubMedCrossRef

Thompson PD, Nutt JG (2007) Higher level gait disorders. J Neural Transm 114(10):1305–1307PubMedCrossRef

Wang C, Wai Y, Kuo B, Yeh YY, Wang J (2008a) Cortical control of gait in healthy humans: an fMRI study. J Neural Transm 115(8):1149–1158PubMedCrossRef

Wang C, Wai Y, Weng Y, Yu J, Wang J (2008b) The cortical modulation from the external cues during gait observation and imagination. Neurosci Lett 443(3):232–235PubMedCrossRef

Winter D (1995) Human balance and posture control during standing and walking. Gait & Posture 3(4):193–214CrossRef

Worsley KJ, Marrett S, Neelin P, Vandal AC, Friston KJ, Evans AC (1996) A unified statistical approach for determining significant signals in images of cerebral activation. Human Brain Mapping 4(1):58–73CrossRef

Xue G, Aron AR, Poldrack RA (2008) Common neural substrates for inhibition of spoken and manual responses. Cereb Cortex 18(8):1923–1932PubMedCrossRef

Yazawa S, Shibasaki H, Ikeda A, Terada K, Nagamine T, Honda M (1997) Cortical mechanism underlying externally cued gait initiation studied by contingent negative variation. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 105(5):390–399PubMedCrossRef

Title: Functional MRI in the assessment of cortical activation during gait-related imaginary tasks
Authors: JiunJie Wang
YauYau Wai
YiHsin Weng
KoonKwan Ng
Ying-Zu Huang
Leslie Ying
HaoLi Liu
ChiHong Wang
Publication date: 01-09-2009
Publisher: Springer Vienna
Published in: Journal of Neural Transmission / Issue 9/2009
Print ISSN: 0300-9564
Electronic ISSN: 1435-1463
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0269-y

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Functional MRI in the assessment of cortical activation during gait-related imaginary tasks

Abstract

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 9/2009

Role of the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 1 in the Harmaline-induced tremor in rats

Hemispheric lateralization of the corticostriatal glutamatergic system in the rat

Recent advances in our understanding of neurodegeneration

Neuroprotective effects of probenecid in a transgenic animal model of Huntington’s disease

Effect of high frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on reaction time, clinical features and cognitive functions in patients with Parkinson’s disease

Serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), environmental conditions, and developing negative emotionality and fear in early childhood