Recognizable rehabilitation movements of multiple unilateral upper limb: An fMRI study of motor execution and motor imagery

Background: This paper presents a study investigating the recognizability of multiple unilateral upper limb movements in stroke rehabilitation. Methods: A functional magnetic experiment is employed to study motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) of four movements for the unilateral upper limb: hand-grasping, hand -handling, arm-reaching, and wrist-twisting. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) images of ME and MI tasks are statistically analyzed to delineate the region of interest (ROI). Then parameter estimation associated with ROIs for each ME and MI task are evaluated, where differences in ROIs for different movements are compared using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Results: All movements of ME and MI tasks activate motor areas of the brain, and there are significant differences (p < 0.05) in ROIs evoked by different movements. The activation area is larger when executing the hand-grasping task instead of the others. Conclusion: The four movements we propose can be adopted as MI tasks, especially for stroke rehabilitation, since they are highly recognizable and capable of activating more brain areas during MI and ME.