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Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study

Motor imagery (MI) is defined as mental execution without any actual movement. While healthy adults usually show temporal equivalence, i.e., isochrony, between the mental simulation of an action and its actual performance, neurological disorders are associated with anisochrony. Unlike in patients wi...

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Autores principales: Tacchino, Andrea, Saiote, Catarina, Brichetto, Giampaolo, Bommarito, Giulia, Roccatagliata, Luca, Cordano, Christian, Battaglia, Mario A., Mancardi, Gian L., Inglese, Matilde
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5768615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00628
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author Tacchino, Andrea
Saiote, Catarina
Brichetto, Giampaolo
Bommarito, Giulia
Roccatagliata, Luca
Cordano, Christian
Battaglia, Mario A.
Mancardi, Gian L.
Inglese, Matilde
author_facet Tacchino, Andrea
Saiote, Catarina
Brichetto, Giampaolo
Bommarito, Giulia
Roccatagliata, Luca
Cordano, Christian
Battaglia, Mario A.
Mancardi, Gian L.
Inglese, Matilde
author_sort Tacchino, Andrea
collection PubMed
description Motor imagery (MI) is defined as mental execution without any actual movement. While healthy adults usually show temporal equivalence, i.e., isochrony, between the mental simulation of an action and its actual performance, neurological disorders are associated with anisochrony. Unlike in patients with stroke and Parkinson disease, only a few studies have investigated differences of MI ability in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the relationship among disease severity, anisochrony and brain activation patterns during MI has not been investigated yet. Here, we propose to investigate MI in MS patients using fMRI during a behavioral task executed with dominant/non-dominant hand and to evaluate whether anisochrony is associated with disease severity. Thirty-seven right-handed MS patients, 17 with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) suggestive of MS and 20 with relapsing-remitting MS (RR-MS) and 20 right-handed healthy controls (HC) underwent fMRI during a motor task consisting in the actual or imaged movement of squeezing a foam ball with the dominant and non-dominant hand. The same tasks were performed outside the MRI room to record the number of actual and imagined ball squeezes, and calculate an Index of performance (IP) based on the ratio between actual and imagined movements. IP showed that a progressive loss of ability in simulating actions (i.e., anisochrony) more pronounced for non-dominant hand, was found as function of the disease course. Moreover, anisochrony was associated with activation of occipito-parieto-frontal areas that were more extensive at the early stages of the disease, probably in order to counteract the changes due to MS. However, the neural engagement of compensatory brain areas becomes more difficult with more challenging tasks, i.e., dominant vs. non-dominant hand, with a consequent deficit in behavioral performance. These results show a strict association between MI performance and disease severity, suggesting that, at early stages of the disease, anisochrony in MI could be considered as surrogate behavioral marker of MS severity.
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spelling pubmed-57686152018-01-26 Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study Tacchino, Andrea Saiote, Catarina Brichetto, Giampaolo Bommarito, Giulia Roccatagliata, Luca Cordano, Christian Battaglia, Mario A. Mancardi, Gian L. Inglese, Matilde Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Motor imagery (MI) is defined as mental execution without any actual movement. While healthy adults usually show temporal equivalence, i.e., isochrony, between the mental simulation of an action and its actual performance, neurological disorders are associated with anisochrony. Unlike in patients with stroke and Parkinson disease, only a few studies have investigated differences of MI ability in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the relationship among disease severity, anisochrony and brain activation patterns during MI has not been investigated yet. Here, we propose to investigate MI in MS patients using fMRI during a behavioral task executed with dominant/non-dominant hand and to evaluate whether anisochrony is associated with disease severity. Thirty-seven right-handed MS patients, 17 with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) suggestive of MS and 20 with relapsing-remitting MS (RR-MS) and 20 right-handed healthy controls (HC) underwent fMRI during a motor task consisting in the actual or imaged movement of squeezing a foam ball with the dominant and non-dominant hand. The same tasks were performed outside the MRI room to record the number of actual and imagined ball squeezes, and calculate an Index of performance (IP) based on the ratio between actual and imagined movements. IP showed that a progressive loss of ability in simulating actions (i.e., anisochrony) more pronounced for non-dominant hand, was found as function of the disease course. Moreover, anisochrony was associated with activation of occipito-parieto-frontal areas that were more extensive at the early stages of the disease, probably in order to counteract the changes due to MS. However, the neural engagement of compensatory brain areas becomes more difficult with more challenging tasks, i.e., dominant vs. non-dominant hand, with a consequent deficit in behavioral performance. These results show a strict association between MI performance and disease severity, suggesting that, at early stages of the disease, anisochrony in MI could be considered as surrogate behavioral marker of MS severity. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5768615/ /pubmed/29375340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00628 Text en Copyright © 2018 Tacchino, Saiote, Brichetto, Bommarito, Roccatagliata, Cordano, Battaglia, Mancardi and Inglese. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Tacchino, Andrea
Saiote, Catarina
Brichetto, Giampaolo
Bommarito, Giulia
Roccatagliata, Luca
Cordano, Christian
Battaglia, Mario A.
Mancardi, Gian L.
Inglese, Matilde
Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title_full Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title_fullStr Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title_full_unstemmed Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title_short Motor Imagery as a Function of Disease Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: An fMRI Study
title_sort motor imagery as a function of disease severity in multiple sclerosis: an fmri study
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5768615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00628
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