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Functional Brain Networks Underlying Motor Area Activation During Motor Execution and Motor Imagery Tasks

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Mariana Mendonca Mascarenhas^1,2, Solana Redway^1,2, Todd Stephen Woodward^1,2; ¹BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute, Vancouver, Canada, ²Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Introduction. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) retrieves reliable spatial patterns and blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes associated with each pattern, referred to as cognitive modes. This study examined the anatomical and temporal characteristics of cognitive modes elicited during Motor Imagery and Motor Execution tasks. Methods. 43 healthy participants completed fMRI sessions while performing motor tasks under two conditions: (1) imagining squeezing a foam ball with the right, left, or both hands (Imagery), and (2) executing the same actions (Execution). Task-timing-related cognitive modes were extracted using Constrained Principal Component Analysis for fMRI, a data-driven dimensionality reduction method designed to isolate task-related BOLD variance. Repeated-measures ANOVA was used to assess significant main effects and interactions across task conditions in BOLD change measures. Results. Activation in the response and initiation modes, and deactivation in the default mode DM, were strongest during executing relative to imagining. Imagined movements tended to recruit bilateral regions more broadly. Focus on Visual Features (FVF) showed suppression during all single-hand conditions (imagine and execute), possibly due to the requirement of suppression of irrelevant visual information (the task-irrelevant side of the screen) to support task performance. Discussion. Novel findings from this study were that imagined movements recruited more bilateral regions than actual executing, and more evidence that the FVF mode is suppressed when aspects of the visual display had to be ignored. These findings characterize the anatomical and temporal patterns of cognitive modes engaged by the Motor Imagery and Motor Execution tasks, with implications for targeting brain stimulation and pre-surgical planning.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Motor control