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Electrocorticography links human temporoparietal junction to visual perception

Nature Neuroscience volume 15, pages 957–959 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electrical stimulation of visual cortex can produce a visual percept (phosphene). We electrically stimulated visual cortex in humans implanted with subdural electrodes while recording from other brain sites. Phosphene perception occurred only if stimulation evoked high-frequency gamma oscillations in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a brain region associated with visual extinction and neglect. Electrical stimulation of TPJ modified the detectability of low-contrast visual stimuli.

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Figure 1: Gamma activity linked to visual perception.
Figure 2: TPJ gamma changes with behavioral performance.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to X. Pei and I. Schepers for assistance with experiment 3. We thank the patients, their families and the staff of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital for their help. This research was supported by a grant from the US National Institutes of Health (5R01NS065395 to M.S.B.) and a Veterans Administration Merit Award to D.Y.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    Michael S Beauchamp & Sarah H Baum

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA

    Ping Sun & Daniel Yoshor

  3. Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA

    Andreas S Tolias & Daniel Yoshor

  4. St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital NeuroScience Center, Houston, Texas, USA

    Daniel Yoshor

Authors
  1. Michael S Beauchamp
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  2. Ping Sun
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  4. Andreas S Tolias
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  5. Daniel Yoshor
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Contributions

M.S.B. and D.Y. designed and conducted the experiments and wrote the manuscript. P.S. conducted the experiments and analyzed the data. S.H.B. conducted the experiments. A.S.T. contributed to experiment 3.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Michael S Beauchamp or Daniel Yoshor.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Beauchamp, M., Sun, P., Baum, S. et al. Electrocorticography links human temporoparietal junction to visual perception. Nat Neurosci 15, 957–959 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3131

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