ReviewFrontiers in human neuroscience2022
Imagining the way forward: A review of contemporary motor imagery theory.
Review in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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.
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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.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review of functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based task paradigms in stroke rehabilitation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Exploring the impact of aging on motor imagery abilities: a systematic review with meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- Motor imagery in autism: a systematic review.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- 'Substitute' knowledge of results provided through virtual reality enhances motor imagery-based learning.Psychological research · 2026Trial
- Dopamine, motor imagery, and proprioception: a neurochemical probe into the perception-imagery debate.Psychological research · 2025Trial
- Motor imagery enhances early rehabilitation in patients with high kinesiophobia after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of rehabilitation medicine · 2025Trial
- Regulation of Somatosensory Temporal Discrimination Threshold Through Motor Training: An EEG and Kinematics Study.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Trial
- The Acute Effects of Motor Imagery Combined With Action Observation Breathing Exercise on Cardiorespiratory Responses, Brain Activity, and Cognition: A Randomized, Controlled Trial.Cardiovascular therapeutics · 2025Trial
- Movement Representation Strategies as a Tool for Educational Innovation in Physiotherapy Students: A Randomized Single-Blind Controlled-Pilot Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Trial
- All Is Relative-A Call for Considering "Physiologically Informed" Control Conditions to Improve the Mechanistic Understanding of the Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognition.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Review
- Distance-dependent modulation of sensory attenuation during motor imagery and overt action.Experimental brain research · 2026Article
- Proprioception and Sensorimotor Regulation Across the Day-Night Cycle in Developmental Dyslexia: Toward an Embodied Perspective.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Different Factors Determining Motor Execution and Motor Imagery Performance in a Serial Reaction Time Task with Intrinsic Variability.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- The relationship between corticospinal excitability and behavioural measures of movement imagery ability.Brain communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Anodal tDCS over the supplementary motor area increases motor overflow during imagined aiming movement.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- A large electroencephalogram database of freewill reaching and grasping tasks for brain machine interfaces.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Regional gray matter volume is associated with motor imagery performance in children with and without developmental coordination disorder.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Perceptual and Motor Processes in Motor Imagery.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- The Impact of Visualization on Stroke Rehabilitation in Adults: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials on Guided and Motor Imagery.Biomedicines · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the past few decades, researchers have become interested in the mechanisms behind motor imagery (i.e., the mental rehearsal of action). During this time several theories of motor imagery have been proposed, offering diverging accounts of the processes responsible for motor imagery and its neural overlap with movement. In this review, we summarize the core claims of five contemporary theories of motor imagery: motor simulation theory, motor emulation theory, the motor-cognitive model, the perceptual-cognitive model, and the effects imagery model. Afterwards, we identify the key testable differences between them as well as their various points of overlap. Finally, we discuss potential future directions for theories of motor imagery.
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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.