Guest Lecture of Dr. Igor Schindler

Guest Lecture of Dr. Igor Schindler

from the University of Hull

Date: 16.06.2010, 6:15 p.m.

Venue: Building A2 4, Seminar Room IIa (Room 2.16)

Topic: TMS as a tool in Neuropsychology

Abstract

During the last two decades transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has become an increasingly popular method to investigate the human brain. Like lesion studies TMS has the potential to provide information about whether a brain area is critical for a specific cognitive function with the added benefit of higher spatial resolution. The first part of my talk will provide a critical overview of the technical and physiological aspects of TMS, touching upon stimulation protocols, spatial/temporal resolutions and localisation methods. In the second part, a series of experiments will be presented investigating the contribution of parietal and temporal cortical areas on visual search and object-centred attention as well as the role of the left and right intra-parietal areas in spatial remapping across saccades. The findings suggest a differential, task-specific involvement of these cortical areas which may explain the heterogeneous nature of symptoms observed in spatial neglect following brain damage.