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Third, mental practice, mind training including visualization and movement imagery, are receiving greater significance for training and for treatment potential. For example, new imaging techniques have shown that imagery, or mental practice, causes neuronal (nerve cell) activity that mirrors actual movement. We also know that movement, respiration and heart rate can be synchronized with training. This capacity of the nervous system is just beginning to be explored in brain injury research and treatment.
Mind training that includes meditation, mindfulness, and visualization is an important component of Tai Chi and Qigong. Unique to practicing these arts is that the mind is not just trained to relax, but it is trained to build a sense of awareness of energy or qi inside the body, thus it is an ‘internal art.’ Further, the mind is trained to direct movement of qi with mind intention...and that movement of qi is what directs the physical body. The result is that the brain strives to create the mental image, not an isolated arm or leg movement.
Merged PET-MRI brain section illustrating changes in cerebral blood flow during movement visualization. From: Lafleur, M. F., et al., 2002. Motor learning produces parallel dynamic functional changes during the execution and imagination of sequential foot movements. Neuroimage. 16, 142-157.
Tai Chi training tools greatly enhance mental agility by tapping into the mind connection between visualization of internal energy (qi) and movement. For example, the simplest meditation is done at night before going to sleep. The meditation that I