Beta-band rTMS of the human attention network selectively modulates goal-driven, but not stimulus-driven search I Dombrowe, C C Hilgetag |
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Department of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
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| Recent physiological observations have related mechanisms of top-down attention to oscillatory activity in the beta band. The aim of the present study was to test, by non-invasive neural perturbation of the human brain, if goal-driven (top-down) visual attention can be selectively modulated by stimulating nodes of the attention network with beta-band (20 Hz) rTMS. In 24 participants, we applied 20 Hz rTMS at the P4 or O2 location of the 10-20 coordinate system in two separate sessions. Online rTMS (10 pulses/450ms with 15s intervals) was interleaved with a goal-driven (feature-search) or a stimulus-driven (odd-one-out) search task. Active stimulation was replaced by sham stimulation in a subsequent offline phase. In a control session, we applied sham stimulation at an intermediate location. Performance was evaluated relative to a pre-session baseline and the control location. We found that beta-band rTMS at O2 and P4 modulated performance in the goal-driven, but not the stimulus-driven task. O2 stimulation led to a deterioration of goal-driven search during the online phase, but improved it beyond baseline during the subsequent offline phase. We conclude that it is possible to selectively modulate goal-driven versus stimulus-driven visual attention by applying beta-band rTMS to nodes of the human attention network. |
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