Functional MT + lesion impairs contralateral motion processing

Abstract

Human motion processing region MT + is retinotopically organized with perception of and attention to motion in the right visual field preferentially associated with left MT + activity and vice versa. However, the degree to which MT + is crucial for motion processing is uncertain. We report an epilepsy patient with visual symptoms early in his seizure evolution and a left temporal-occipital seizure onset electrographically in whom we hypothesized a functional left MT + lesion. The patient was impaired in his right but not left visual field on a hemifield motion attention task and demonstrated worse performance on a hemifield picture identification task when pictures implying motion were presented in the right as opposed to the left visual field. Functional MRI (fMRI) during a full-field motion detection task activated right MT + but failed to activate left MT + despite activating both left and right MT + in each of 10 controls. Furthermore, fMRI during a hemifield motion attention task also showed a lack of left MT + attention effects in the patient. Together these results suggest that MT + is necessary for normal motion processing.