2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Motor imagery with muscle afferent stimulation elicits the voluntary-like reflex movement after its training.
| Project/Area Number |
26560282
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Rehabilitation science/Welfare engineering
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| Research Institution | Kyorin University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | 神経システム再構築 / ニューロリハビリテーション / 脊髄 / 脊髄障害 / 運動イメージ |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the voluntary movement-like reflex force could be produced by the motor imagery under the weak high frequency stimulation of muscle afferents. While the stimulation were applied to tibial nerve (3 Hz), small repetitive twitch forces of plantar flexion (PF) arising from monosynaptic reflex were elicited from triceps surae. Under this situation, the subjects were asked to imagine motor execution of PF. As a result of physiological and kinematical analyses, this new stimulation technique with imagery of motor execution occurred smooth ramp increment movement (gradual enhancement of repetitive reflex twitches) after ~100 times of training. Furthermore, actual “voluntary movement” could be improved (i.e. reduction of movement discontinuity). These results suggested that motor imagery with high frequency stimulation can induce voluntary-like reflex movement after this training, and modulate actual motor performance itself.
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| Free Research Field |
神経生理学
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