Cognitive neuroscienceHemiextinction induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right temporo-parietal junction
Section snippets
Subjects
Fourteen subjects participated in the study (eight males, six females, mean age (24.7±1.8 [S.D.] years) All subjects were right-handed according to the Edinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971), had normal or corrected to normal vision and had no history of neurological abnormalities. The protocol was approved by the local institutional review board and all subjects gave their written informed consent.
Visual stimuli
Small black dots of 2×2, 2×3, 3×3, 3×4, or 4×5 pixels were presented on a computer screen against
Results
In all experiments, subjects correctly identified catch trials to a high degree, TMS had no influence on catch trial identification (mean correct response 98.2% all sham stimulation experiments, 97.6% all real stimulation experiments, P>0.5, Student’s t-test).
For reaction times, repeated-measures ANOVA, with “TMS” (real, sham), “site of TMS” (TPJ, STG), “site of visual stimulus” (right, left, bilateral) and “TMS onset time” (150 ms, 250 ms) as within-subject factors demonstrated no significant
Discussion
The present study found that TMS over the right TPJ induces an extinction effect to the left visual hemifield, whereas TMS over the right STG has no differential effect on detection of bilateral stimuli. During unilateral stimulus presentation, TMS over TPJ induced a slight amelioration of detection of ipsilateral stimuli, whereas detection of contralateral stimuli was unimpaired.
The results of the present study extend the results of previous TMS studies on the functional representation of
Conclusion
In conclusion, the present study showed that TMS over the TPJ induces an extinction-like behavioral pattern, whereas TMS over the STG had no effect on the attentional processes tested here. The results indicate an involvement of the TPJ, which is part of the ventral frontoparietal network, in attentional processing of competing visual stimuli.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (KFO 112/1) and the IZKF “BIOMAT” Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research at the faculty of Medicine at the RWTH Aachen University (Project N68-f). I.G.M. is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (ME 2104/3-1).
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