Timing of spatial priming within the fronto-parietal attention network: A TMS study

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are known to be part of a cortical network involved in visual spatial attention. Top-down control can modulate processing at target and distractor positions over a sequence of trials, leading to positive priming at prior target positions and negative priming at prior distractor positions. In order to elucidate the exact time course of this top-down mechanism we here propose a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol. Singlepulses were applied over the right PPC, the right DLPFC or over the vertex (sham stimulation) at five time intervals (50, 100, 150, 200, 250 ms) after onset of a probe display during a spatial negative priming paradigm. Both suppression of the negative priming effect at a previous distractor position and enhancement of positive priming at a previous target position was found if a TMS pulse was applied 100 ms after the probe display onset either over the right DLPFC or the right PPC. We suggest that top-down mechanisms within the right fronto-parietal attention network are compromised during TMS interference in this time window. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.