Contralateral neglect induced by right posterior parietal rTMS in healthy subjects

Abstract

We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in order to induce interference on visuo-spatial perception in 11 healthy subjects. Subjects performed a visuo-spatial task requiring judgements about the symmetry of prebisected lines. Visual stimuli consisted of symmetrically or asymmetrically transected lines, tachystoscopically presented for 50 ms on a computer-monitor. Performance was examined in basal condition and during rTMS trains of 10 stimuli at 25 Hz, delivered through a focal coil over right or left posterior parietal cortex (P5 and P6 sites) and triggered synchronously with visual stimulus. Randomly intermixed sham rTMS trains were employed to control for non-specific effects. Right parietal rTMS induced a significant rightward bias in symmetry judgements as compared with basal and sham rTMS conditions. No differences emerged between other conditions.