Neural basis of visuospatial attention investigated by modulation of brain activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation

选择性注意的神经基础是认知神经科学中最重要的问题之一。尽管大脑区域的网络涉及从环境中过滤掉不重要的信息，以关注最重要的信息，但尚不清楚该网络中的节点如何彼此不同，即哪些大脑区域对实现哪些精确的心理功能至关重要。经颅磁刺激（TMS）是一种神经刺激方法，我们可以在参与者执行注意力任务时干扰大脑功能，以测试受刺激区域的因果贡献。本实验使用经颅磁刺激刺激被认为支持隐蔽视觉空间注意的皮质网络中的神经区域。除了记录行为外，这些实验还结合了颅磁刺激和脑电波记录（TMS- eeg）来测量皮层网络的不同部分何时以及如何发挥重要作用。这项研究有可能推导出这些重要的心理功能是如何在大脑中表现出来的，并且在理解大脑如何控制我们的感知方面具有普遍的有效性。

The neural basis of selective attention is one of the most dominant issues in cognitive neuroscience. Although a network of brain areas have been implicated in filtering out unimportant information from the environment to focus on what is most important, it is not clear how the nodes in this network differ from one another i.e. which brain regions are critical for implementing which precise psychological functions. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a method of neural stimulation with which we can interfere with brain function while participants perform attentional tasks, to test the causal contribution of the stimulated region. The experiments in this proposal use TMS to stimulate the neural areas within the cortical network thought to support covert visuospatial attention. In addition to recording behaviour, these experiments combine TMS with brain-wave recording (TMS-EEG) to measure when and how different parts of the cortical network play their vital role. This research bears the potential to derive how these important psychological functions are represented in the brain, and has general validity in understanding how our brains control what we perceive.