Activation and inhibition of posterior parietal cortex have bi-directional effects on spatial errors following interruptions

Abstract

Interruptions to ongoing mental activities are omnipresent in our modern digital world, but the brain networks involved in interrupted performance are not known, nor have the activation of those networks been modulated. Errors following interruptions reflect failures in spatial memory, whose maintenance is supported by a brain network including the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC). The present study therefore used bi-directional transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) of right PPC to examine the neuromodulation of spatial errors following interruptions, as well as performance on another PPC-dependent task, mental rotation. Anodal stimulation significantly reduced the number of interruption-based errors and increased mental rotation accuracy whereas cathodal stimulation significantly increased errors and reduced mental rotation accuracy. The results provide evidence for a causal role of the PPC in the maintenance of spatial representations during interrupted task performance.