Direct current stimulation over MT+/V5 modulates motion aftereffect in humans

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Abstract
While there is strong evidence for the central role of the human MT+/V5 in motion processing, its involvement in motion adaptation is still the subject of debate. We used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to test whether MT+/V5 is part of the neural network involved in the long-term adaptation-induced motion after-effect in humans. It was found that both cathodal and anodal stimulation over MT+/V5 resulted in a significant reduction of the perceived motion after-effect duration, but had no effect on performance in a luminance-change-detection task used to determine attentional load during adaptation. Our control experiment excluded the possibility that the observed MT+/V5 stimulation effects were due to a diffused modulation of the early cortical areas, i.e. by the stimulation applied over MT+/V5. These results provide evidence that external modulation of neural excitability in human MT+/V5 affects the strength of perceived motion after-effect and support the involvement of MT+/V5 in motion adaptation processes.