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Enhanced visual spatial attention ipsilateral to rTMS-induced 'virtual lesions' of human parietal cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 4, pages 953–957 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The breakdown of attentional mechanisms after brain damage can have drastic behavioral consequences, as in patients suffering from spatial neglect. While much research has concentrated on impaired attention to targets contralateral to sites of brain damage, here we report the ipsilateral enhancement of visual attention after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of parietal cortex at parameters known to reduce cortical excitability. Normal healthy subjects received rTMS (1 Hz, 10 mins) over right or left parietal cortex. Subsequently, detection of visual stimuli contralateral to the stimulated hemisphere was consistently impaired when stimuli were also present in the opposite hemifield, mirroring the extinction phenomenon commonly observed in neglect patients. Additionally, subjects' attention to ipsilateral targets improved significantly over normal levels. These results underline the potential of focal brain dysfunction to produce behavioral improvement and give experimental support to models of interhemispheric competition in the distributed brain network for spatial attention.

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Figure 1: Methods.
Figure 2: Changes in correct stimulus detection after parietal rTMS.
Figure 3: Response vectors for baseline performance and after parietal TMS.
Figure 4: Schematic representation of a modified attentional gradient following parietal impairment (shown here for right impairment; transformed representation in red, baseline in black), resulting in potentially unequal performance changes at mirror-symmetric stimulus eccentricities (−x and x).

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported in part by grants from the Wellcome Trust (C.C.H.), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (H.T.) and the US National Institute of Mental Health (RO1MH60734, RO1MH57980), and National Eye Institute (RO1EY12091) (A.P-L.).

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  1. Claus C. Hilgetag

    Present address: International University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, D-28759, Bremen, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, 700 Albany Street W746, Boston, 02118, Massachusetts, USA

    Claus C. Hilgetag

  2. Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Laboratory for Magnetic Brain Stimulation, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, 02215, Massachusetts, USA

    Hugo Théoret & Alvaro Pascual-Leone

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Correspondence to Claus C. Hilgetag.

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Hilgetag, C., Théoret, H. & Pascual-Leone, A. Enhanced visual spatial attention ipsilateral to rTMS-induced 'virtual lesions' of human parietal cortex. Nat Neurosci 4, 953–957 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0901-953

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