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Phosphene-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation of occipital but not parietal cortex suppresses stimulus visibility

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An Erratum to this article was published on 11 April 2014

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied over the occipital lobe approximately 100 ms after the onset of a stimulus decreases its visibility if it appears in the location of the phosphene. Because phosphenes can also be elicited by stimulation of the parietal regions, we asked if the same procedure that is used to reduce visibility of stimuli with occipital TMS will lead to decreased stimulus visibility when TMS is applied to parietal regions. TMS was randomly applied at 0–130 ms after the onset of the stimulus in steps of 10 ms in occipital and parietal regions. Participants responded to the orientation of the line stimulus and rated its visibility. We replicate previous reports of phosphenes from both occipital and parietal TMS. As previously reported, we also observed visual suppression around the classical 100 ms window both in the objective line orientation and subjective visibility responses with occipital TMS. Parietal stimulation, on the other hand, did not consistently reduce stimulus visibility in any time window.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dustin Martin, Martin Prete and Lu Echo Ye for assistance with data collection. This research was conducted while Evelina Tapia was a postdoctoral trainee in the Cognitive Psychophysiology Training Program at the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (National Institute of Mental Health National Research Service Award MH19554 to the University of Illinois).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Evelina Tapia & Diane M. Beck

  2. Section of Physiology and Psychology, Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

    Chiara Mazzi & Silvia Savazzi

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  1. Evelina Tapia
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  2. Chiara Mazzi
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  3. Silvia Savazzi
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  4. Diane M. Beck
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Correspondence to Evelina Tapia.

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Tapia, E., Mazzi, C., Savazzi, S. et al. Phosphene-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation of occipital but not parietal cortex suppresses stimulus visibility. Exp Brain Res 232, 1989–1997 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3888-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3888-y

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