Qualitative analysis of unilateral spatial neglect in relation to laterality of cerebral lesions

AUTOR(ES)

Gainotti, G.

RESUMO

Two unselected groups of patients, affected by a mono-hemispheric cerebral lesion, were studied in two seperate services by means of various tasks of copying drawings, in order to check the hypothesis of a qualitative difference between unilateral spatial neglect (USN) of right and left brain-damaged patients. In both experimental groups drawing asymmetries were found to be of slight importance among the left hemispheric patients, consisting chiefly in a tendency to omit some figures lying on the right half of the models, and to be definitely more severe in the right braindamaged patients, where the main pattern of USN seemed to be the tendency to leave unfinished the left half of the drawings. A second aim of the study was to describe some less frequent features of USN, sometimes found in patients who were recovering from a severe damage of the minor hemisphere. These patterns of USN seemed to suggest that the core of unilateral spatial neglect consists in a peculiar disorganization of the type of synthesis of the sensory data which seems characteristic of the minor hemisphere.

Documentos Relacionados

• Visuo-spatial neglect: qualitative differences and laterality of cerebral lesion.
• Preserved leftward movement in left unilateral spatial neglect due to frontal lesions.
• Space representation in unilateral spatial neglect.
• Leftward search in left unilateral spatial neglect.
• Unilateral spatial neglect due to right frontal lobe haematoma.