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Studying the Role of Human Parietal Cortex in Visuospatial Attention with Concurrent TMS-fMRI

Blankenburg, F; Ruff, CC; Bestmann, S; Bjoertomt, O; Josephs, O; Deichmann, R; Driver, J; (2010) Studying the Role of Human Parietal Cortex in Visuospatial Attention with Concurrent TMS-fMRI. Cerebral Cortex , 20 (11) 2702 - 2711. 10.1093/cercor/bhq015. Green open access

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Abstract

Combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows study of how local brain stimulation may causally affect activity in remote brain regions. Here, we applied bursts of high- or low-intensity TMS over right posterior parietal cortex, during a task requiring sustained covert visuospatial attention to either the left or right hemifield, or in a neutral control condition, while recording blood oxygenation-level-dependent signal with a posterior MR surface coil. As expected, the active attention conditions activated components of the well-described "attention network," as compared with the neutral baseline. Also as expected, when comparing left minus right attention, or vice versa, contralateral occipital visual cortex was activated. The critical new finding was that the impact of high- minus low-intensity parietal TMS upon these visual regions depended on the currently attended side. High- minus low-intensity parietal TMS increased the difference between contralateral versus ipsilateral attention in right extrastriate visual cortex. A related albeit less pronounced pattern was found for left extrastriate visual cortex. Our results confirm that right human parietal cortex can exert attention-dependent influences on occipital visual cortex and provide a proof of concept for the use of concurrent TMS-fMRI in studying how remote influences can vary in a purely top-down manner with attentional demands.

Type: Article
Title: Studying the Role of Human Parietal Cortex in Visuospatial Attention with Concurrent TMS-fMRI
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhq015
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhq015
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Authors 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Concurrent Tms–fmri, Posterior Parietal Cortex, State-dependence, Visuospatial Attention, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Human Motor Cortex, Human Extrastriate Cortex, Human Visual-cortex, Spatial Attention, Selective Attention, Neuronal Synchronization, Cortical Mechanisms, Directed Attention, Unilateral Neglect
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Clinical and Movement Neurosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/174656
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