Tuning Eye-Gaze Perception by Transitory STS Inhibition.
Cereb. Cortex. 2016-03-05; 26(6): 2823-2831
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw045
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Saitovitch A(1), Popa T(2), Lemaitre H(3), Rechtman E(1), Lamy JC(2), Grévent
D(1), Calmon R(1), Meunier S(2), Brunelle F(1), Samson Y(4), Boddaert N(1),
Zilbovicius M(1).
Author information:
(1)INSERM U1000, Department of Pediatric Radiology, Hôpital Necker Enfants
Malades, AP-HP, University René Descartes, PRES Sorbonne Paris Cité, UMR 1163,
Institut Imagine, Paris, France.
(2)Inserm U1127, CNRS UMR 7225, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, UMR S
1127, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, ICM, Centre de Neuro-imagerie
de Recherche, CENIR, Paris, France.
(3)INSERM U1000, Department of Pediatric Radiology, Hôpital Necker Enfants
Malades, AP-HP, University René Descartes, PRES Sorbonne Paris Cité, UMR 1163,
Institut Imagine, Paris, France Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris-Sud, Paris,
France.
(4)Stroke Center, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, AP-HP, Université Pierre
et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
Processing eye-gaze information is a key step to human social interaction.
Neuroimaging studies have shown that superior temporal sulcus (STS) is highly
implicated in eye-gaze perception. In autism, a lack of preference for the eyes,
as well as anatomo-functional abnormalities within the STS, has been described.
To date, there are no experimental data in humans showing whether it is possible
to interfere with eye-gaze processing by modulating STS neural activity. Here, we
measured eye-gaze perception before and after inhibitory transcranial magnetic
stimulation (TMS) applied over the posterior STS (pSTS) in young healthy
volunteers. Eye-gaze processing, namely overt orienting toward the eyes, was
measured using eye tracking during passive visualization of social movies.
Inhibition of the right pSTS led participants to look less to the eyes of
characters during visualization of social movies. Such effect was specific for
the eyes and was not observed after inhibition of the left pSTS nor after placebo
TMS. These results indicate for the first time that interfering with the right
pSTS neural activity transitorily disrupts the behavior of orienting toward the
eyes and thus indirectly gaze perception, a fundamental process for human social
cognition. These results could open up new perspectives in therapeutic
interventions in autism.
© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.