ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Observation of others' actions during limb immobilization prevents the subsequent decay of motor performance.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05713890 (An Integrated and Home-based Motor Rehabilitation Combining Virtual Reality and Action Observation Treatment in People With Multiple Sclerosis), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
An Integrated and Home-based Motor Rehabilitation Combining Virtual Reality and Action Observation Treatment in People With Multiple Sclerosis: a Clinical and Neuroimaging Study
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early sleep after action observation and motor imagery improved manual dexterity in patients after surgery for metacarpal and phalangeal fractures.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- The capacity of action observation to drag the trainees' motor pattern toward the observed model.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Early sleep after action observation and motor imagery training boosts improvements in manual dexterity.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- The Added Value of Point-Light Display Observation in Total Knee Arthroplasty Rehabilitation Program: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Pilot Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2022Trial
- A Virtual Reality Dataset to Support Hand Action Observation in Rehabilitation and Motor Learning Studies.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Efficacy of a Rehabilitation Treatment Using Action Observation Therapy Enhanced by Muscle Synergy-Derived Electrical Stimulation (OTHELLO) in Post-Stroke Patients: A RCT Study Protocol.Journal of central nervous system disease · 2025Article
- Changes in brain functional connectivity and muscle strength independent of elbow flexor atrophy following upper limb immobilization in young females.Experimental physiology · 2024Article
- Mapping relational links between motor imagery, action observation, action-related language, and action execution.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- The Proactive Synergy Between Action Observation and Execution in the Acquisition of New Motor Skills.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is rich clinical evidence that observing normally executed actions promotes the recovery of the corresponding action execution in patients with motor deficits. In this study, we assessed the ability of action observation to prevent the decay of healthy individuals' motor abilities following upper-limb immobilization. To this end, upper-limb kinematics was recorded in healthy participants while they performed three reach-to-grasp movements before immobilization and the same movements after 16 h of immobilization. The participants were subdivided into two groups; the experimental group observed, during the immobilization, the same reach-to-grasp movements they had performed before immobilization, whereas the control group observed natural scenarios. After bandage removal, motor impairment in performing reach-to-grasp movements was milder in the experimental group. These findings support the hypothesis that action observation, via the mirror mechanism, plays a protective role against the decline of motor performance induced by limb nonuse. From this perspective, action observation therapy is a promising tool for anticipating rehabilitation onset in clinical conditions involving limb nonuse, thus reducing the burden of further rehabilitation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.