Optimising the context of motor imagery neurofeedback training

• Applicant: Dr. Cornelia Kranczioch
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322071030

Motor imagery training refers to the mental practice of a motor skill with the aim to learn or to improve the motor skill. It is used in skill learning in healthy individuals and in sports, and is a promising approach in the rehabilitation of motor impairments following stroke. Motor imagery training can be combined with an online neurofeedback signal. Using brain computer interface technology information about the strength and adequacy of a particular mental act can be derived in near real-time from the electroencephalogram (EEG). A crucial notion is that combining motor imagery training with neurofeedback can help to induce neural plasticity and restore lost function. Yet even in groups of healthy participants a significant proportion of EEG neurofeedback users perform mediocre at best. Aiming towards clinical applications, an important issue therefore is to identify how the ability to self-regulate brain activity can be improved. The proposed research follows the idea that neurofeedback use is a skill that can be learned. We also assume that the mechanisms underlying motor imagery neurofeedback overlap to a large degree with those underlying motor imagery without additional neurofeedback and, similarly, that the mechanisms underlying motor execution and motor imagery with neurofeedback overlap. Based on this working hypothesis we predict that context factors known to influence motor imagery training or motor execution training should also affect motor imagery neurofeedback training. This prediction will be investigated in a series of studies focusing on the context factors sleep, interference through additional non-motor memory tasks and physical practice of the to-be-imagined motor task prior to motor imagery neurofeedback training. The effect of context factors is expected to be evident in brain activation related to motor imagery, in neurofeedback performance, and in physical task performance. With the proposed research we will optimise motor imagery neurofeedback protocols towards exploiting the full potential of neurofeedback for facilitating adaptive cortical reorganisation. From a more theoretical point of view the proposed research will help advancing theories of neuronal changes accompanying motor imagery training. It will also contribute to an evidence-based positioning of motor imagery neurofeedback on the continuum between motor imagery and motor execution.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Stefan Debener