TMS reveals flexible use of form and motion cues in biological motion perception. (April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mather, George; Battaglini, Luca; Campana, Gianluca
• Is Part Of: Neuropsychologia. Volume 84(2016)
• Page Start: 193
• Page End: 197
• Publication Date: 2016-04
• Subjects: Neuropsychology -- Periodicals; Neurology -- Periodicals; Psychophysiology -- Periodicals; Neuropsychologie -- Périodiques; Neuropsychology; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 616.8
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.02.015
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-3932

Abstract

Abstract: The perception of human movement is a key component of daily social interactions. Although extrastriate area MT+/V5 is closely associated with motion processing, its role in the processing of sparse 'biological motion' displays is still unclear. We developed two closed matched psychophysical tasks to assess simple coherent motion perception and biological motion perception, and measured changes in performance caused by application of TMS over MT+/V5. Performance of the simple motion discrimination task was significantly depressed by TMS stimulation, and highly correlated within observers in TMS conditions, but there was no significant decrement in performance of the biological motion task, despite low intra-observer correlations across TMS conditions. We conclude that extrastriate area MT+/V5 is an obligatory waypoint in the neural processing of simple coherent motion, but is not obligatory for the processing of biological motion. Results are consistent with a dual neural processing route for biological motion processing. Highlights: Compared the effect of rTMS on perception of drift motion and biological motion. TMS over MT impaired discrimination of drift motion but not biological motion. High correlations in data across conditions in drift motion, not in biological motion. Data are consistent with dual neural processing routes for biological motion.