Revealing Connections in Object and Scene Processing Using Consecutive TMS and fMR-Adaptation

When processing the visual world, our brain must perform many computations that may occur across several regions. It is important to understand communications between regions in order to understand perceptual processes underlying processing of our environment. We sought to determine the connectivity of object and scene processing regions of the cortex, which are not fully established. In order to determine these connections repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and functional magnetic resonance-adaptation (fMR-A) were paired together. rTMS was applied to object-selective lateral occipital (LO) and scene-selective transverse occipital sulcus (TOS). Immediately after stimulation, participants underwent fMR-A, and pre- and post-TMS responses were compared. TMS disrupted remote regions revealing connections from LO and TOS to remote object and scene-selective regions in the occipital cortex. In addition, we report important neural correlates regarding the transference of object related information between modalities, from LO to outside the ventral network to parietal and frontal areas.