The Study of Cortical Lateralization and Motor Performance Evoked by External Visual Stimulus During Continuous Training

Motor imagery (MI) as an important way of motor learning has been studied widely. The visual task stimulus is an efficient way to improve MI abilities; however, its impact mechanism on motor training is still obscure. This study aimed to explore the influence of visual task stimulus on MI during continuous training. Three types of kinesthetic motor imageries, including a visual task stimulus, a visual stimulus, or no stimulus, were assessed. Brain lateralization and the variations of the event-related desynchronization were investigated. The results demonstrated a greater improvement motor performance after a visual task stimulus. The MI evoked by the visual task shows the most complex event-related lateralization (ERL) among the three contexts, with the presence of many ERL components. These results reveal a complex process of planning, attention focusing, and information processing on the brain, and the complexity of the information process increases with the one of external visual stimulus. This work provides a promising foundation for the incorporation of visual-task stimuli as a strategy to improve motor ability during motor training and motor rehabilitation.