Exploring motor and visual imagery in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Exploring motor and visual imagery in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
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DOI：
10.1007/s00221-013-3465-9
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发表时间：
2013-05-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Bottini, G.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Fiori, F.;Sedda, A.;Bottini, G.
肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)是一种以第一运动神经元和第二运动神经元进行性萎缩为特征的运动神经元疾病。虽然ALS患者的认知特征已经被定义为语言功能障碍和额叶缺陷症状的发生，但尚不清楚上下运动神经元的退化是否会影响运动想象能力。在这里，我们通过一个既定的任务直接研究ALS患者的运动想象，该任务允许检查生物力学约束的影响的存在。对23名ALS患者和23名神经正常受试者进行了(1)手偏侧任务(HLT)和(2)镜像字母辨别任务(MLD)，在HLT任务中，参与者被要求判断旋转的手的偏侧性；(2)在MLD任务中，参与者被要求判断旋转的字母数字字符是处于规范形式还是镜像反转形式(即控制任务)。结果显示，在MLD中，患者表现出与正常受试者相同的表现模式，而在HLT中，他们只表现出部分生物力学限制的影响。综上所述，我们的发现提供了证据，证明运动想象能力与对动作的心理模拟有关，受到这种进行性疾病的影响。
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a motor neuron disease characterized by the progressive atrophy of both the first and the second motor neurons. Although the cognitive profile of ALS patients has already been defined by the occurrence of language dysfunctions and frontal deficit symptoms, it is less clear whether the degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons affects motor imagery abilities. Here, we directly investigated motor imagery in ALS patients by means of an established task that allows to examine the presence of the effects of the biomechanical constraints. Twenty-three ALS patients and 23 neurologically unimpaired participants have been administered with the (1) hand laterality task (HLT) in which participants were asked to judge the laterality of a rotated hand and the (2) mirror letter discrimination task (MLD) in which participants were asked to judge whether a rotated alphanumeric character was in its canonical or mirror-reversed form (i.e. control task). Results show that patients present the same pattern of performance as unimpaired participants at the MLD, while at the HLT, they present only partially with the effects of biomechanical constraints. Taken together, our findings provide evidences that motor imagery abilities, related to the mental simulation of an action, are affected by this progressive disease.