Ricerc@Sapienza

In the last 20 years, motor imagery (MI) has been extensively used to train motor abilities in sport and in rehabilitation. However, MI procedures are not all alike as much as their potential beneficiaries. Here we assessed whether the addition of visual cues could make MI performance more comparable with explicit motor performance in gait tasks. With fMRI we also explored the neural correlates of these experimental manipulations. We did this in elderly subjects who are known to rely less on kinesthetic information while favoring visual strategies during motor performance.

In recent years, cognitive theories have increasingly influenced the approach to motor rehabilitation. The connection between different aspects of cognitive and motor function is increasingly documented, underlining the importance of developing rehabilitation projects that take cognitive aspects into account. The aim of this non-systematic review is to highlight the relationship between cognition and motion and, in the light of new rehabilitation technologies, to better define how aspects of cognition can affect motor rehabilitation.