Complex motor imagery in elite female ice hockey players: a cortical arena of imagination revealed by magnetoencephalography

Motor imagery (MI), or "visualization," as practiced by elite athletes to improve performance, provides a model of how covert thought-imagination-can affect subsequent behavior. In this exploratory magnetoencephalography (MEG) study, we aimed to identify the brain regions involved in complex MI in a small sample of elite female ice hockey players experienced in visualization. Using an experimental block design, the athletes visualized a specific PETTLEP (physical, environment, task, timing, learning, emotion, perspective)-guided scripted ice hockey play while being monitored with MEG. A frequency-domain beamformer was then calculated to contrast the MEG data from the imagery condition with two different control (resting state or mental counting) conditions. Significance was assessed using a cluster-based permutation test. The beamforming results identified a principal hub of neural activity during the imagery condition in a posterior left hemisphere cortical region surrounding the intraparietal sulcus. The same brain region was reliably activated in all eight participants and may hypothetically demarcate the neural substrate of this type of conscious thought.