Mental Rotation Meets the Motion Aftereffect: The Role of hV5/MT+ in Visual Mental Imagery

摘要

A growing number of studies show that visual mental imagerynrecruits the same brain areas as visual perception. Althoughnthe necessity of hV5/MT+ for motion perception has been revealednby means of TMS, its relevance for motion imagery remainsnunclear. We induced a direction-selective adaptation innhV5/MT+ by means of an MAE while subjects performed anmental rotation task that elicits imagined motion. We concurrentlynmeasured behavioral performance and neural activity withnfMRI, enabling us to directly assess the effect of a perturbationnof hV5/MT+ on other cortical areas involved in the mental rotationntask. The activity in hV5/MT+ increased as more mentalnrotation was required, and the perturbation of hV5/MT+ affectednbehavioral performance as well as the neural activity innthis area. Moreover, several regions in the posterior parietal cortexnwere also affected by this perturbation. Our results shownthat hV5/MT+ is required for imagined visual motion and engagesnin an interaction with parietal cortex during this cognitivenprocess. ■