Higher visual cognition: Search, neglect, attention, and eye movements

© Oxford University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. This article reviews the contribution of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) research to the understanding of attention, eye movements, visual search, and neglect. It considers how TMS studies have confirmed, refined, or challenged prevailing ideas about the neural basis of higher visual cognition. It shows that TMS has enhanced the understanding of the location, timing, and functional roles of visual cognitive processes in the human brain. The main focus is on studies of posterior parietal cortex (PPC), with reference to recent work on the frontal eye fields (FEFs). TMS offers many advantages to complement neuropsychological patient studies to enhance the understanding of how the fronto-parietal cortical nerves function. The visuo-spatial neglect- and extinction-like deficits incurred by parietal damage have been modelled successfully using TMS. Future work might be directed at teasing apart the distinct functional roles of nodes within this frontoparietal network in different sensorimotor contexts.