Neuropsychology of spatial neglect

Spatial neglect

The syndrome of visuospatial neglect is a common consequence of unilateral brain injury. It is most often associated with stroke and is more severe and persistent following right hemisphere damage, with reported frequencies in the acute stage of up to 80%. Neglect is primarily a disorder of attention whereby patients characteristically fail to orientate, to report or to respond to stimuli locat...

Hypnosis meets neuropsychology: simulating visuospatial neglect in healthy participants.

Neglect patients are not aware of stimuli in the contralesional space. We aimed to simulate neglect-like behaviour in healthy participants, by asking them to orient their visuospatial attention in two conditions: non-hypnotic suggestion and post-hypnotic suggestion. Results showed that directing visuospatial attention to one side of space caused neglect of stimuli in the opposite side of space,...

Spatial and non-spatial aspects of neglect

Deficits of contralesional space awareness (neglect and extinction) often follow right hemisphere damage and are typically attributed to the disruption of neurocognitive mechanisms subserving orienting of attention in space (Driver and Vuilleumier, 2001). Neglect affects awareness of contralesional stimuli, whereas extinction affects contralesional awareness only when competing stimuli are pres...

Swan Unilateral Spatial Neglect

Reward modulates spatial neglect

BACKGROUND Reward has been shown to affect attention in healthy individuals, but there have been no studies addressing whether reward influences attentional impairments in patients with focal brain damage. METHODS Using two novel variants of a widely-used clinical cancellation task, we assessed whether reward modulated impaired attention in 10 individuals with left neglect secondary to right ...