Cattaneo Zaira, Renzi Chiara, Casali Stefano, Silvanto Juha, Vecchi Tomaso, Papagno Costanza, D'Angelo Egidio
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy.
Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy.
Cortex. 2014 Sep;58:272-80. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.01.012. Epub 2014 Feb 15.
Cerebellar patients have been found to show deficits in visual motion discrimination, suggesting that the cerebellum may play a role in visual sensory processing beyond mediating motor control. Here we show that triple-pulse online transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over cerebellar vermis but not over the cerebellar hemispheres significantly impaired motion discrimination. Critically, the interference caused by vermis TMS on motion discrimination did not depend on an indirect effect of TMS over nearby visual areas, as demonstrated by a control experiment in which TMS over V1 but not over cerebellar vermis significantly impaired orientation discrimination. These findings demonstrate the causal role of the cerebellar vermis in visual motion processing in neurologically normal participants.
小脑病变患者已被发现存在视觉运动辨别缺陷，这表明小脑可能在介导运动控制之外的视觉感觉处理中发挥作用。在这里，我们表明，对小脑蚓部而非小脑半球进行三脉冲在线经颅磁刺激（TMS）会显著损害运动辨别能力。至关重要的是，蚓部TMS对运动辨别造成的干扰并不依赖于TMS对附近视觉区域的间接影响，这一点通过一项对照实验得到了证明，在该实验中，对V1而非小脑蚓部进行TMS显著损害了方向辨别能力。这些发现证明了小脑蚓部在神经功能正常的参与者的视觉运动处理中的因果作用。
