Abstract
Attention is the dynamic process of allocating limited resources to the information that is most relevant to our goals. Accumulating studies have demonstrated the crucial role of frontal and parietal areas in attention. However, the effect of posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in attention is still unclear. To address this question, in this study, we measured transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-induced event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine the extent of involvement of the right pSTS in attentional processing. We hypothesized that TMS would enhance the activation of the right pSTS during feature discrimination processing. We recruited 21 healthy subjects who performed the dual-feature delayed matching task while undergoing single-pulse sham or real TMS to the right pSTS 300 ms before the second stimulus onset. The results showed that the response time was reduced by real TMS of the pSTS as compared to sham stimulation. N270 amplitude was reduced during conflict processing, and the time-varying network analysis revealed increased connectivity between the frontal lobe and temporo-parietal and occipital regions. Thus, single-pulse TMS of the right pSTS enhances feature discrimination processing and task performance by reducing N270 amplitude and increasing connections between the frontal pole and temporo-parietal and occipital regions. These findings provide evidence that the right pSTS facilitates feature discrimination by accelerating the formation of a dynamic network.
Highlights
Attention is the key cognitive function that selects currently relevant pieces of information at the expense of irrelevant ones, thereby facilitating the selection of features (Moore and Zirnsak, 2017)
The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) plays an important role in conflicts related to face and orientation processing (Eacott et al, 1993), and the results show that pSTS is involved in color and shape discrimination, as Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of this brain area facilitated the processing of mismatched stimulus features to a greater extent than that of matched features
We investigated the effects of single-pulse TMS over the right pSTS in the dual-feature delayed matching task
Summary
Attention is the key cognitive function that selects currently relevant pieces of information at the expense of irrelevant ones, thereby facilitating the selection of features (Moore and Zirnsak, 2017). It is widely accepted that frontal and parietal cortices are the main brain areas related to attention control (Moore and Zirnsak, 2017), but recent evidence suggests that temporal cortex is involved in the modulation of motion and color discrimination (Bogadhi et al, 2018; Stemmann and Freiwald, 2019) and is a critical structure in the cortical control of covert selective attention (Bogadhi et al, 2019). Combining TMS with EEG (TMS–EEG) enables the measurement of brain-wide cortical responses to TMS (Ilmoniemi and Kicic, 2010) and has permitted studies to examine the brain states and the dynamics across the cortical areas with excellent temporal resolution (Pellicciari et al, 2017). TMS–EEG provides precise information on the spatiotemporal order of activation of cortical areas, which can reveal causal interactions within functional brain networks (Rogasch and Fitzgerald, 2013)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
