Can mental exercise prevent unused muscles

from getting weaker?

Last updated: Tuesday 25 November 2014 at 7am PST

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Rehabilitation / Physical Therapy
Neurology / Neuroscience
Sports Medicine / Fitness
Stroke
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Patients who are unable to use their muscles for extended periods of time - such as
those who have suffered a stroke - often experience weakened muscles from lack of
use. But now, a new study suggests that performing mental imagery exercises can
prevent the unused muscles from getting weaker.

Patients undergoing neurorehabilitation - such as those who have experienced a stroke - may
benefit from mental imagery exercise to prevent weakness in unused muscles, according to the
latest study.

The researchers, from the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic

Medicine, publish their findings in the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Using mental imagery for physical performance is not necessarily a new concept;
professional athletes often use such techniques to improve their athletic

performance. However, the team says theirs is the first study to demonstrate that
imagery can stop or slow muscle strength loss after long periods of disuse.
The findings have implications for individuals undergoing neurorehabilitation
and provide a "major breakthrough" for scientists, in that they offer new
evidence about how the nervous system affects muscle weakness.
Though medical scientists have known that the brain's cortex coordinates and
controls muscle movement, until now, the link between the cortex and muscle
strength has been up for debate.
"We wanted to tease out the underlying physiology between the nervous system
and muscles to better understand the brain's role in muscle weakness," says Prof.
Brian Clark, study author and director of the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological
Institute.
He refers to muscles as the nervous system's puppets, with the brain acting as the
string prompting the muscles to move.

Findings unveil 'importance of brain in regulating muscle strength'

To conduct their study, the team had a group of healthy individuals undergo 4 weeks
of wrist-hand immobilization - achieved by wearing a cast - to encourage muscle
weakness. Meanwhile, another group also underwent 4 weeks of immobilization, but
they performed mental imagery of strong muscle contractions 5 days per week.
In addition, a control group underwent no interventions. Medical News Today did not
have access to the number of total subjects who participated in the study. Before,
immediately after and 1 week following the immobilization interventions, the
researchers measured wrist flexor strength.
As the first group imagined contracting their muscles and flexing their wrist, the
researchers recorded their muscle activity using an electromyogram (EMG).
Overall, the results showed that the mental imagery training attenuated the loss of
strength. Explaining their findings further, Prof. Clark says:

"What our study suggests is that imagery exercises could be a valuable tool to
prevent or slow muscles from becoming weaker when a health problem limits or
restricts a person's mobility.
The most impactful finding, however, is not the direct clinical application, but the
support that this work provides for us to better understand the critical importance
of the brain in regulating muscle strength. This information may fundamentally
change how we think about muscle weakness in the elderly."
The researchers further say that their findings suggest neurological mechanisms at
the cortical level contribute to "disuse-induced weakness," adding that imagery
activating the cortical regions lessens weakness "by maintaining normal levels of
inhibition."
Following on from this study, Prof. Clark and his team will carry out further research
on muscle strength loss in a 4-year project funded by the National Institutes of
Health's (NIH) National Institute on Aging.
In October of this year, MNT reported on the development of a new prosthetic arm
that is controlled by the brain.
Written by Marie Ellis