rTMS of the occipital cortex abolishes Braille reading and repetition priming in blind subjects

[en] To study the functional involvement of the visual cortex in Braille reading, we applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over midoccipital (MOC) and primary somatosensory (SI) cortex in blind subjects. After rTMS of MOC, but not SI, subjects made significantly more errors and showed an abolishment of the improvement in reading speed following repetitive presentation of the same word list, suggesting a role of the visual cortex in repetition priming in the blind.

Disciplines :

Neurology

Author, co-author :

Kupers, R.

Pappens, M.

MAERTENS DE NOORDHOUT, Alain ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > Neurologie CHR

Schoenen, Jean ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences biomédicales et précliniques > Neuro-anatomie

Ptito, M.

Fumal, Arnaud ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > Neurologie CHR

Language :

English

Title :

rTMS of the occipital cortex abolishes Braille reading and repetition priming in blind subjects

Publication date :

27 February 2007

Journal title :

Neurology

ISSN :

0028-3878

eISSN :

1526-632X

Publisher :

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, United States - Pennsylvania

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

691-693

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 25 September 2009

Statistics

Number of views

110 (0 by ULiège)

Number of downloads

0 (0 by ULiège)

More statistics

Scopus citations^®

Scopus citations^®
without self-citations

OpenCitations

OpenAlex citations

Bibliography

Merabet LB, Rizzo JF, Amedi A, Somers DC, Pascual-Leone A. What blindness can tell us about seeing again: merging neuroplasticity and neuroprostheses. Nat Rev Neurosci 2005;6:71-77.
Hamilton R, Keenan JP, Catala M, Pascual-Leone A. Alexia for Braille following bilateral occipital stroke in an early blind woman. Neuroreport 2000;11:237-240.
Cohen LG, Celnik P, Pascual-Leone A, et al. Functional relevance of cross-modal plasticity in blind humans. Nature 1997;389:180-183.
Amedi A, Floel A, Knecht S, Zohary E, Cohen LG. Transcranial magnetic stimulation of the occipital pole interferes with verbal processing in blind subjects. Nat Neurosci 2004;7:1266-1270.
Rossini PM, Barker AT, Berardelli A, et al. Non-invasive electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain, spinal cord and roots: basic principles and procedures for routine clinical application. Report of an IFCN committee. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 1994;91:79-92.
Amedi A, Raz N, Pianka P, Malach R, Zohary E. Early "visual" cortex activation correlates with superior verbal memory performance in the blind. Nat Neurosci 2003;6:758-766.
Raz N, Amedi A, Zohary E. V1 activation in congenitally blind humans is associated with episodic retrieval. Cereb Cortex 2005;15:1459-1468.
Ptito M, Moesgaard SM, Gjedde A, Kupers R. Cross-modal plasticity revealed by electrotactile stimulation of the tongue in the congenitally blind. Brain 2005;128:606-614.
Schacter DL, Badgaiyan RD. Neuroimaging of priming: new perspectives on implicit and explicit memory. Curr Direct Psychol Sci 2001;10:1-4.
Henson RNA, Rugg MD. Neural response suppression, haemodynamic repetition effects, and behavioural priming. Neuropsychologia 2003;41:263-270.