Action-blindsight in healthy subjects after transcranial magnetic stimulation

Mark Schram Christensen, Lasse Kristiansen, James B. Rowe, Jens Bo Nielsen

    32 Citationer (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Clinical cases of blindsight have shown that visually guided movements can be accomplished without conscious visual perception. Here, we show that blindsight can be induced in healthy subjects by using transcranial magnetic stimulation over the visual cortex. Transcranial magnetic stimulation blocked the conscious perception of a visual stimulus, but subjects still corrected an ongoing reaching movement in response to the stimulus. The data show that correction of reaching movements does not require conscious perception of a visual target stimulus, even in healthy people. Our results support previous results suggesting that an efference copy is involved in movement correction, and this mechanism seems to be consistent even for movement correction without perception.
    OriginalsprogEngelsk
    TidsskriftProceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America
    Vol/bind105
    Udgave nummer4
    Sider (fra-til)1353-1357
    Antal sider5
    ISSN0027-8424
    DOI
    StatusUdgivet - 2008

    Citationsformater