Effects of movement and movement imagery on somatosensory evoked magnetic fields following posterior tibial nerve stimulation.

We examined the "gating" effects caused by active and passive movements of toes and by "movement imagery" (mental moving of the toe without actual movements) on somatosensory evoked magnetic fields (SEFs) following stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve in normal subjects. Active and passive movements significantly attenuated the short- and middle-latency cortical components (P < 0.001) with no latency change, and the effects of the active movements were larger than those of the passive movements. In contrast, the subsequent long-latency component with a latency of about 100 ms was enhanced only by the active movements. Therefore, both centrifugal and centripetal mechanisms should be considered. The gating effects by movements on all components may occur in the primary sensory cortex (SI) in the hemisphere contralateral to the stimulated nerve, because all of the equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) of the components in the "control" and each "interference" waveform were located there. Active movements of the toes contralateral to the stimulated nerve caused no significant gating effect. The short-latency components were not consistently changed by "movement imagery", but the middle- and long-latency components were enhanced. Their ECDs were located in the SI contralateral to the stimulated nerve and in the SII in bilateral hemispheres. Therefore, we speculated that brain responses to somatosensory stimulation, particularly components generated in SII, were affected by volitional changes.