Laterality effects in selective attention to threat after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation at the prefrontal cortex in female subjects

Recently, several experiments have indicated that the left and right prefro ntal cortex (PFC) are differently involved in emotional processing. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the left and right PFC in sel ective attention to angry faces by using a pictorial emotional Stroop task. Slow repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied to th e left and right PFC of 10 female subjects for 15 min on separate days. Res ults showed a significant effect of stimulation position: right PFC rTMS re sulted in selective attention towards angry faces, whereas left PFC rTMS re sulted in selective attention away from angry faces. This finding is in acc ordance with theoretical accounts of the neural implementation of approach and withdrawal systems. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science ireland Ltd. All rights r eserved.