141. Audiovisual integration effect in lateral occipital cortex during an object recognition task: A TMS study

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：F. Giovannelli ; F. Giganti ; F. Fiorilli ; M. Trinci ; A. Borgheresi ; L. Tramacere ; G. Zaccara ; M. Cincotta ; M.P. Viggiano
• 刊名：Clinical Neurophysiology
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：November, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：124
• 期：11
• 页码：e220
• 全文大小：35 K

文摘

Perceptual events occur in multiple sensory modalities. Recent neuroimaging data challenge the traditional models arguing for sensory integration to occur in higher-order association cortices and support the hypothesis of a multisensory interplay at low-level sensory-specific cortex. We used an on-line interference approach by rTMS to investigate the role of the left lateral occipital cortex (LOC) in audio-visual (AV) object recognition process. Fifteen healthy volunteers performed a visual identification task of degraded pictures (living and non-living) presented alone (V) or simultaneously to coherent (c-AV) or non-coherent (nc-AV) sounds. Focal 10-Hz rTMS at an intensity of 100 % resting motor threshold was delivered simultaneously to the picture (500 ms). Two blocks of 60 pictures were randomly displayed in two different experimental conditions: rTMS of the left LOC and over Cz (cortical control area). Accuracy and reaction time of identification were analyzed. rTMS of the left LOC produced a worsening of the accuracy compared to rTMS over Cz specifically in the c-AV condition. Interestingly, the effect was significant for stimuli belonging to the living semantic category. These data support the view that audiovisual interaction effect may occur at early stage of recognition processing.