Affiliations: Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Palermo,
Italy | Fondazione "Santa Lucia" IRCCS, Roma, Italy | Clinica Neurologica, Università di Roma Tor
Vergata, Italy
Note: [] Corresponding author: Massimiliano Oliveri, MD, PhD, Laboratorio
di Neurologia Clinica e Comportamentale, Fondazione "Santa Lucia" IRCCS, Via
Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy. Tel.: +390651501574; Fax: +390651501388;
E-mail: maxoliveri@tiscali.it
Abstract: We review a series of studies exemplifying some applications of
single-pulse and paired-transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in the study of
spatial attention and of its deficits. We will focus primarily on sensory
extinction, the failure to consciously perceive a contralesional sensory
stimulus only during bilateral stimulation of homologous surfaces. TMS studies
in healthy controls show that it is possible either to interfere or modulate
the excitability of the parietal cortex during sensory (i.e. tactile and
visual) attentional tasks, thus reproducing a condition of virtual extinction.
TMS studies in patients with unilateral (mainly right) brain damage show that
the modulation of the unbalance in cortical excitability between the two
cerebral hemispheres transiently improves contralesional sensory extinction.
These studies show the possible application of TMS not only as a research
method in healthy subjects, but also as a tool for inducing brain excitability
changes in patients with sensory extinction, which could be useful for
supporting the rehabilitation of this deficit.
