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Science 18 August 2000:
Vol. 289. no. 5482, pp. 1206 - 1208
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5482.1206
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Reports

Modulation of Human Visual Cortex by Crossmodal Spatial Attention

Emiliano Macaluso,12* Chris D. Frith,2 Jon Driver1

A sudden touch on one hand can improve vision near that hand, revealing crossmodal links in spatial attention. It is often assumed that such links involve only multimodal neural structures, but unimodal brain areas may also be affected. We tested the effect of simultaneous visuo-tactile stimulation on the activity of the human visual cortex. Tactile stimulation enhanced activity in the visual cortex, but only when it was on the same side as a visual target. Analysis of effective connectivity between brain areas suggests that touch influences unimodal visual cortex via back-projections from multimodal parietal areas. This provides a neural explanation for crossmodal links in spatial attention.

1 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK.
2 Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, London, UK.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: e.macaluso{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk

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