Transient inhibition of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex disrupts attention-based modulation of tactile stimuli at early stages of somatosensory processing

► cTBS suppressed dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity. ► Attention-based modulation of tactile signals from the hand was reduced post-cTBS. ► Early somatosensory cortical processing influenced by suppressed prefrontal activity. ► Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex regulates gating of somatosensory information. ► This gating occurs at early cortical processing stages based upon task-relevance.