Right posterior parietal cortex is involved in disengaging from threat:a 1 Hz rTMS study
Publication year
2017Number of pages
9 p.
Source
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 11, (2017), pp. 1814-1822ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
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Organization
SW OZ BSI KLP
PI Group Affective Neuroscience
SW OZ DCC CO
Journal title
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Volume
vol. 12
Issue
iss. 11
Languages used
English (eng)
Page start
p. 1814
Page end
p. 1822
Subject
230 Affective Neuroscience; Action, intention, and motor control; DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 2: Perception, Action and Control; Experimental Psychopathology and TreatmentAbstract
The right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is implicated in spatial attention, but its specific role in emotional spatial attention remains unclear. In the present study, we combined inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a fear conditioning paradigm to test the role of the right PPC in attentional control of task-irrelevant threatening distractors. In a sham-controlled within-subject design, 1 Hz repetitive TMS was applied to the left and right PPC after which participants performed a visual search task with a distractor that was either associated with a loud noise burst (threat) or not (non-threat). Results demonstrated attentional capture across all conditions as evidenced by the typical reaction time costs of the distractor. However, only after inhibitory rTMS to the right PPC reaction time cost in the threatening distractor condition was increased relative to the non-threatening distractor condition, suggesting that attention lingered longer on the threatening distractor. We propose that the right PPC is involved in disengagement of attention from emotionally salient stimuli in order to re-orient attention to task relevant stimuli and may have implications for anxiety disorders associated with difficulties to disengage from threatening stimuli.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [245088]
- Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging [4021]
- Electronic publications [132384]
- Faculty of Social Sciences [30335]
- Open Access publications [105983]
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