Article

Most group studies which have investigated neglect for near and far space have
found an increased severity of symptoms in far space compared to near space.
However, the majority of these studies used relatively small samples and based
their findings almost exclusively on line bisection performance. The aim of the
present study was, therefore, to explore the occurrence of neglect for near and
far space in a larger group of unselected right brain damaged patients and to
evaluate whether neglect specific to near and far space is a task-related deficit
or generalises across distance irrespective of task. In addition, a lesion
overlap analysis was carried out to identify critical lesion sites associated
with distance specific neglect deficits. Thirty-eight right hemisphere damaged
patients carried out a line bisection and a cancellation task by using a pen in
near space (40 cm) and a laser pointer in far space (320 cm). The results showed
that both the number of left-sided omissions and rightward bisection errors were
significantly increased in near compared to far space. Distance specific
dissociations, albeit less common, were more frequently observed for cancellation
than line bisection. These results suggest that space representation in neglect
is more severely impaired in near than in far space. In addition, distance
related dissociations in neglect may depend on task demands. Although the
anatomical findings were broadly consistent with a dorsal and ventral stream
dichotomy for near and far space processing, they also suggest the involvement of
intermediate structures in distance related neglect phenomena.
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Langue : ANGLAIS