The effect of task-irrelevant visual backgrounds on human transcranial magnetic stimulation-evoked electroencephalography responses and cortical alpha activity.

Brain responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in task-free experimental contexts are known to depend on psychophysiological states such as sleep, vegetative state and caffeine-induced arousal. Much less is known about how TMS-evoked responses depend on task-irrelevant steady perceptual input. Here, we examined ongoing alpha activity and the mean amplitude of EEG potentials in response to occipitally applied TMS as a function of task-irrelevant visual backgrounds.

Repetitive TMS over V5/MT shortens the duration of spatially localized motion aftereffect: the effects of pulse intensity and stimulation hemisphere.

Causal relevance of the cortical area V5/MT for motion (aftereffect) perception has been shown when rTMS pulses have been applied onto this area, leading to disruption of the percept. Typically, the inducing and test stimuli have consisted in a spatially contiguous area from where stimulation is presented. Observers have had no need to divide attention between spatially remote areas including motion-related signals with different vectors.