TY - JOUR
T1 - Magnetic stimulation of visual cortex impairs perceptual learning
AU - Baldassarre, Antonello
AU - Capotosto, Paolo
AU - Committeri, Giorgia
AU - Corbetta, Maurizio
N1 - Funding Information:
The research leading to these results has received funding from Bial Foundation ( grant n. 122/14 ). The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - The ability to learn and process visual stimuli more efficiently is important for survival. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that perceptual learning on a shape identification task differently modulates activity in both frontal-parietal cortical regions and visual cortex (Sigman et al., 2005; Lewis et al., 2009). Specifically, fronto-parietal regions (i.e. intra parietal sulcus, pIPS) became less activated for trained as compared to untrained stimuli, while visual regions (i.e. V2d/V3 and LO) exhibited higher activation for familiar shape. Here, after the intensive training, we employed transcranial magnetic stimulation over both visual occipital and parietal regions, previously shown to be modulated, to investigate their causal role in learning the shape identification task. We report that interference with V2d/V3 and LO increased reaction times to learned stimuli as compared to pIPS and Sham control condition. Moreover, the impairment observed after stimulation over the two visual regions was positive correlated. These results strongly support the causal role of the visual network in the control of the perceptual learning.
AB - The ability to learn and process visual stimuli more efficiently is important for survival. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that perceptual learning on a shape identification task differently modulates activity in both frontal-parietal cortical regions and visual cortex (Sigman et al., 2005; Lewis et al., 2009). Specifically, fronto-parietal regions (i.e. intra parietal sulcus, pIPS) became less activated for trained as compared to untrained stimuli, while visual regions (i.e. V2d/V3 and LO) exhibited higher activation for familiar shape. Here, after the intensive training, we employed transcranial magnetic stimulation over both visual occipital and parietal regions, previously shown to be modulated, to investigate their causal role in learning the shape identification task. We report that interference with V2d/V3 and LO increased reaction times to learned stimuli as compared to pIPS and Sham control condition. Moreover, the impairment observed after stimulation over the two visual regions was positive correlated. These results strongly support the causal role of the visual network in the control of the perceptual learning.
KW - Perceptual learning
KW - TMS
KW - Visual cortex
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84988000600&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.08.063
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.08.063
M3 - Article
C2 - 27591920
AN - SCOPUS:84988000600
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 143
SP - 250
EP - 255
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
ER -