The role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in visual change awareness.

Recently, the neural correlates of change detectionvs change blindness
have been investigated using fMRI. Results revealed that conscious
perception of change is associatedwith enhanced activity in
a neural network comprising the parietal (bilateral) and right dorsolateral
prefrontal (DLPF) cortex. Here, by means of repetitive
transcranialmagnetic stimulation (rTMS), we unveil the causal role
of the right DLPF cortex in perceiving changes.When rTMS was
applied to this area, change perceptionwas impaired as compared
to leftDLPF rTMS and sham stimulation.This result is important as
it shows, for the ¢rst time, that conscious change perception is associated
with normal activity in the right DLPF cortex.Our ¢ndings
are in agreement with a recent view emphasizing the role of
frontal areas, in addition to classical ventral and dorsal pathways, in
visual awareness