Cona G, Marino G, Semenza C
Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua, Italy.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Italy.
Neuroimage. 2017 Feb 1;146:770-777. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.10.032. Epub 2016 Oct 27.
In the present study we applied online transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) bursts at 10Hz to the supplementary motor area (SMA) and primary motor cortex to test whether these regions are causally involved in mental rotation. Furthermore, in order to investigate what is the specific role played by SMA and primary motor cortex, two mental rotation tasks were used, which included pictures of hands and abstract objects, respectively. While primary motor cortex stimulation did not affect mental rotation performance, SMA stimulation improved the performance in the task with object stimuli, and only for the pairs of stimuli that had higher angular disparity between each other (i.e., 100° and 150°). The finding that the effect of SMA stimulation was modulated by the amount of spatial orientation information indicates that SMA is causally involved in the very act of mental rotation. More specifically, we propose that SMA mediates domain-general sequence processes, likely required to accumulate and integrate information that are, in this context, spatial. The possible physiological mechanisms underlying the facilitation of performance due to SMA stimulation are discussed.
在本研究中，我们以10赫兹的频率对辅助运动区（SMA）和初级运动皮层施加在线经颅磁刺激（TMS）脉冲，以测试这些区域是否因果性地参与心理旋转。此外，为了研究SMA和初级运动皮层所起的具体作用，我们使用了两项心理旋转任务，分别包括手部图片和抽象物体图片。虽然对初级运动皮层的刺激并未影响心理旋转表现，但对SMA的刺激提高了物体刺激任务中的表现，且仅针对彼此之间角度差异较大的刺激对（即100°和150°）。SMA刺激的效果受空间方向信息量调节这一发现表明，SMA因果性地参与了心理旋转这一行为。更具体地说，我们提出SMA介导领域通用的序列过程，这可能是积累和整合在此情境下为空间信息所必需的。我们还讨论了由于SMA刺激而促进表现的可能生理机制。
