EXAMINING THE ROLE OF THE INFERIOR PARIETAL LOBE IN MOTOR IMAGERY

Abstract

The neural activity underlying motor imagery (MI), the mental rehearsal of movement, consistently involves the inferior parietal lobe (IPL). This activity pattern led to the belief that MI is biased towards the perceptual components of movement. However, the role of the IPL is unknown. This thesis aimed to ascertain the role of the IPL by: 1) stimulating the IPL after the completion of a trial to test if it was involved in feedback provision, and 2) replicate seminal findings demonstrating the importance of the IPL in MI using a kinematically complex task. The IPL did not appear to be involved in the provision of feedback resulting from MI but the original findings in this area were replicated in a complex movement task. The combination of findings suggests that the increased IPL activity is necessary for MI and its role, while still unknown, is likely temporally contained to MI performance.