Article

While unilateral spatial neglect after left brain damage is undoubtedly less
common than spatial neglect after a right hemisphere lesion, it is also assumed
to be less severe. Here we directly test this latter hypothesis using a
continuous measure of neglect severity: the so-called Center of Cancellation
(CoC). Rorden and Karnath (2010) recently validated this index for right brain
damaged neglect patients. A first aim of the present study was to evaluate this
new measure for spatial neglect after left brain damage. In a group of 48
left-sided stroke patients with and without neglect, a score greater than -0.086
on the Bells Test and greater than -0.024 on the Letter Cancellation Task turned
out to indicate neglect behavior for acute left brain damaged patients. A second
aim was to directly compare the severity of spatial neglect after left versus
right brain injury by using the new CoC measure. While neglect is less frequent
following left than right hemisphere injury, we found that when this symptom
occurs it is of similar severity in acute left brain injury as in patients after
acute right brain injury.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS