Action-blindsight in healthy subjects after transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Clinical cases of blindsight have shown that visually guided movements can be accomplished without conscious visual perception. Here, we show that blindsight can be induced in healthy subjects by using transcranial magnetic stimulation over the visual cortex. Transcranial magnetic stimulation blocked the conscious perception of a visual stimulus, but subjects still corrected an ongoing reaching movement in response to the stimulus. The data show that correction of reaching movements does not require conscious perception of a visual target stimulus, even in healthy people. Our results support previous results suggesting that an efference copy is involved in movement correction, and this mechanism seems to be consistent even for movement correction without perception.
Christensen
Mark Schram
MS
Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Nørre Allé 51, DK-2200 København N, Denmark. markc@drcmr.dk
Kristiansen
Lasse
L
Rowe
James B
JB
Nielsen
Jens Bo
JB
D000328:Adult; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*