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Technical University of Munich

New study published in Cerebral Cortex

In our recent study, we expanded on our previous fMRI findings (Seifert et al., 2025) to investigate the causal role of the left ventro-dorsal stream, focusing on the anterior supramarginal gyrus (aSMG) and the ventral precentral gyrus (vPreCG) during the Novel Tool Test:
Example of a velocity profile while performing tasks from the Novel Tool Test with the kinematic compensatory behavior shown in blue for early stimulation to the aSMG and green for late stimulation to the vPreCG.

this test requires participants to use novel tools to manipulate a cylindrical object. We applied inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt these brain regions. While overall task performance remained unimpaired, we detected subtle compensatory kinematic behavior: participants in the aSMG group exhibited longer reaching paths and reduced velocities during early stimulation, whereas the vPreCG group displayed delayed movement initiation and longer deceleration periods after late stimulation. These results may offer new insights into the time-specific contributions of the two brain areas along the left ventro-dorsal stream, which warrants further investigation.

Seifert, C., Gulde, P., Kampe, T., Wohlschläger, A., & Hermsdörfer, J. (2026). Effects of left ventro-dorsal stream stimulation on novel tool use. Cerebral Cortex, 36(4). doi:10.1093/cercor/bhag035

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