title: Parietal theta burst TMS: Functional fractionation observed during bistable perception not evident in attention tasks.
abstract: When visual input is ambiguous, perception spontaneously alternates between interpretations: bistable perception. Studies have identified two distinct sites near the right intraparietal sulcus where inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) affects the frequency of occurrence of these alternations, but strikingly with opposite directions of effect for the two sites. Lesion and TMS studies on spatial and sustained attention have also indicated a parcellation of right parietal cortex, into areas serving distinct attentional functions. We used the exact TMS procedure previously employed to affect bistable perception, yet measured its effect on spatial and sustained attention tasks. Although there was a trend for TMS to affect performance, trends were consistently similar for both parietal sites, with no indication of opposite effects. We interpret this as signifying that the previously observed parietal fractionation of function regarding the perception of ambiguous stimuli is not due to TMS-induced modification of spatial or sustained attention.
authors.affiliation: Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex, UK; Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: georg.schauer@cin.uni-tuebingen.de.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schauer
authors.affiliation: Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex, UK; ARAYA Brain Imaging, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryota
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kanai
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Jan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Brascamp
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bistable perception; Parietal cortex; Spatial attention; Sustained attention; TMS