Unilateral neglect restricted to visual imagery.
Disorders in perceiving and exploring the visual space contralateral to a brain lesion have been frequently described. Many patients with hemi-neglect for extrapersonal space also show neglect in a representational domain when the task requires imagining a well-known piazza from a given vantage point or comparing two visual images. Cognitive and psychophysiological studies show a functional parallelism between the perceptual and imaginative domain, indicating that spatial perception and imagery share the same neural substrata. Here we describe a patient with a persistent disorder in visual imagery for familiar piazzas in the absence of any neglect for stimuli located in a far or near space or on his own body. Contrary to previous cases involving imagery disorders, computerized tomography scans showed a lesion confined to the right frontal lobe, suggesting the role of the frontal lobe in some specific types of mental imagery.
Guariglia
C
C
Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy.
Padovani
A
A
Pantano
P
P
Pizzamiglio
L
L
D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004538:Eidetic Imagery; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D014796:Visual Perception