Nature documentaries vs. quiet rest: no evidence for an impact on event-related desynchronization during motor imagery and neurofeedback

Motor imagery (MI) in combination with neurofeedback (NF) has emerged as a promising approach in motor neurorehabilitation, facilitating brain activity modulation and promoting motor learning. Although MI-NF has been demonstrated to enhance motor performance and cortical plasticity, its efficacy varies considerably across individuals. Various context factors have been identified as influencing neurophysiological outcomes in motor execution and MI, however, their specific impact on event-related desynchronization (ERD), a key neurophysiological marker in NF, remains insufficiently understood. Previous research suggested that declarative interference following MI-NF may serve as a context factor hindering the progression of ERD. Yet, no significant changes in ERD within the mu and beta (8–30 Hz) frequency bands were observed across blocks in either a declarative interference or a control condition. This raises the question of whether the absence of ERD modulation could be attributed to the break task that was common to both declarative interference and control condition: watching nature documentaries immediately after MI blocks. To investigate this, we conducted a follow-up study replicating the original methodology while collecting new data. We compared NF-MI-ERD between groups with and without nature documentaries as a post-MI condition. Participants completed three sessions of kinesthetic MI-NF training involving a finger-tapping task over two consecutive days, with quiet rest as the post-MI condition (group quiet rest). 64-channel EEG data were analyzed from 17 healthy participants (8 females, 18–35 years, M and SD: 25.2 ± 4.2 years). Data were compared to a previously recorded dataset (group documentaries), in which 17 participants (10 females, 23–32 years, M and SD: 25.8 ± 2.5 years) watched nature documentaries after MI blocks. The results showed no significant main effects for blocks or group, though a session-by-group interaction was observed. Post-hoc tests, however, did not reveal significant differences in ERD development between the groups across individual blocks. These findings do not provide evidence that nature documentaries used as a post-MI condition negatively affect across-block development of NF-MI-ERD. This study highlights the importance of exploring additional context factors in MI-NF training to better understand their influence on ERD development.