Concurrent frontal and parietal network TMS for modulating attention

Stefano Gallotto; Teresa Schuhmann; Felix Duecker; Marij Middag-van Spanje; Tom A de Graaf; Alexander T Sack

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.103962

Concurrent frontal and parietal network TMS for modulating attention

iScience. 2022 Feb 22;25(3):103962. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103962. eCollection 2022 Mar 18.

Authors

Stefano Gallotto^{1

2}, Teresa Schuhmann^{1

2

3}, Felix Duecker^{1

2}, Marij Middag-van Spanje^{1

4}, Tom A de Graaf^{1

2

3}, Alexander T Sack^{1

2

3

5}

Affiliations

¹ Section Brain Stimulation and Cognition, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6229 Maastricht, the Netherlands.
² Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre, 6229 Maastricht, the Netherlands.
³ Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6200 Maastricht, the Netherlands.
⁴ InteraktContour, 8070 Nunspeet, the Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNs), Brain+Nerve Centre, Maastricht University Medical Centre+ (MUMC+), 6224 Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been applied to frontal eye field (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in isolation, to study their role in attention. However, these nodes closely interact in a "dorsal attention network". Here, we compared effects of inhibitory TMS applied to individually fMRI-localized FEF or IPS (single-node TMS), to effects of simultaneously inhibiting both regions ("network TMS"), and sham. We assessed attention performance using the lateralized attention network test, which captures multiple facets of attention: spatial orienting, alerting, and executive control. TMS showed no effects on alerting and executive control. For spatial orienting, only network TMS showed a reduction of the orienting effect in the right hemifield compared to the left hemifield, irrespective of the order of TMS application (IPS→FEF or FEF→IPS). Network TMS might prevent compensatory mechanisms within a brain network, which is promising for both research and clinical applications to achieve superior neuromodulation effects.

Keywords: Neuroscience; Systems neuroscience; Techniques in neuroscience.