rTMS to the right inferior parietal lobule disrupts self-other discrimination.
Self-other discrimination is fundamental to social interaction, however, little is known about the neural systems underlying this ability. In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we demonstrated that a right fronto-parietal network is activated during viewing of self-faces as compared with the faces of familiar others. Here we used image-guided repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to create a 'virtual lesion' over the parietal component of this network to test whether this region is necessary for discriminating self-faces from other familiar faces. The current results indeed show that 1 Hz rTMS to the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) selectively disrupts performance on a self-other discrimination task. Applying 1 Hz rTMS to the left IPL had no effect. It appears that activity in the right IPL is essential to the task, thus providing for the first time evidence for a causal relation between a human brain area and this high-level cognitive capacity.
Uddin
Lucina Q
LQ
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, USA. lucina@ucla.edu
Molnar-Szakacs
Istvan
I
Zaidel
Eran
E
Iacoboni
Marco
M
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / Q000295:instrumentation*