title: Visual area V5/hMT+ contributes to perception of tactile motion direction: a TMS study.
abstract: Human imaging studies have reported activations associated with tactile motion perception in visual motion area V5/hMT+, primary somatosensory cortex (SI) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC; Brodmann areas 7/40). However, such studies cannot establish whether these areas are causally involved in tactile motion perception. We delivered double-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while moving a single tactile point across the fingertip, and used signal detection theory to quantify perceptual sensitivity to motion direction. TMS over both SI and V5/hMT+, but not the PPC site, significantly reduced tactile direction discrimination. Our results show that V5/hMT+ plays a causal role in tactile direction processing, and strengthen the case for V5/hMT+ serving multimodal motion perception. Further, our findings are consistent with a serial model of cortical tactile processing, in which higher-order perceptual processing depends upon information received from SI. By contrast, our results do not provide clear evidence that the PPC site we targeted (Brodmann areas 7/40) contributes to tactile direction perception.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.|NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1 Wakamiya, Morinosato, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa, 243-0198, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Amemiya
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Brianna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1 Wakamiya, Morinosato, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa, 243-0198, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gomi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Haggard
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D055698:Touch Perception; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult