Motor imagery for walking: A comparison between cerebral palsy adolescents with hemiplegia and diplegia Miche ` le Molina a, *, Cyril Kudlinski a , Jessica Guilbert a , Steffie Spruijt b , Bert Steenbergen b,c , Franc ¸ois Jouen d a Laboratoire Psychologie des Actions Langagie `res et Motrices, Universite ´ de Caen, France b Radboud University Nijmegen, Behavioural Science Institute, The Netherlands c Australian Catholic University, School of Psychology, Melbourne, Australia d Laboratoire Cognitions Humaine et Artificielle, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France 1. Introduction Motor disorders in individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) are kwown to induce deficit in motor anticipatory planning (Craje ´ et al., 2010; Mutsaarts, Steenbergen, & Meulenbroek, 2004; Mutsaarts, Steenbergen, & Bekkering, 2005, 2006) which, in turn, has been be related to impaired ability to use motor imagery (i.e. Mutsaarts et al., 2006). Motor imagery (MI) is the mental simulation of a motor act, without any overt motor execution and thus refers to the capacity to produce kinesthetic representations of motor actions (Decety, Jeannerod, & Prablanc, 1989). MI would be used to predict the proprioceptive consequences of an action and then contribute to movement planning (Grush, 2004; Papaxanthis, Pozzo, Skoura, & Schieppati, 2002). Research in Developmental Disabilities 37 (2015) 95–101 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 2 October 2014 Accepted 29 October 2014 Available online Keywords: Motor imagery Mental chronometry CP Walking ABSTRACT The goal of the study was to investigate whether motor imagery (MI) could be observed in cerebral palsy (CP) participants presenting a bilateral affected body side (diplegia) as it has been previously revealed in participants presenting a unilateral body affected sided (hemiplegia). MI capacity for walking was investigated in CP adolescents diagnosed with hemiplegia (n = 10) or diplegia (n = 10) and in adolescents with typical motor development (n = 10). Participants were explicitly asked to imagine walking before and after actually walking toward a target located at 4 m and 8 m. Movement durations for executed and imagined trials were recorded. ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation analyses revealed the existence of time invariance between executed and imagined movement durations for the control group and both groups of CP participants. However, results revealed that MI capacity in CP participants was observed for the short distance (4 m) but not for the long distance (8 m). Moreover, even for short distance, CP participants performed worse than typical adolescents. These results are discussed inline of recent researches suggesting that MI in CP participants may not depend on the side of the lesion. ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Laboratoire Psychologie des Actions Langagie ` res et Motrices, Universite ´ de Caen, esplanade de la paix, 14032 Cedex 5, France. Tel.: +33 23128566263. E-mail address: michele.molina@unicaen.fr (M. Molina). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research in Developmental Disabilities http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2014.10.053 0891-4222/ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.