title: Differential visuospatial dysfunction following striatal, frontal white matter, or posterior thalamic infarction.
abstract: The present study investigated visuospatial functioning in 35 right-hand dominant patients with striatal, frontal white matter, or posterior thalamic infarction, in the right cerebral hemisphere. On tasks of visual detection and discrimination, the groups performed within normal limits and comparable to one another. On tasks of visual synthesis and spatial analysis, each group was significantly impaired, with greatest impairment following infarction of deep grey structures. Correlational analyses indicated that in the striatal and frontal white matter groups, visual synthesis and spatial analysis task performance were strongly correlated with performance on neuropsychological tests of executive control. This relationship was not observed in the posterior thalamic group. The results support the hypothesis of differential patterns of visuospatial performance depending on the anatomical locus of subcortical lesions. The findings are explained in terms of differing subcortical circuitry and suggest that multiple substrates mediate the sequelae of subcortical lesions.
authors.affiliation: Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit 48201, USA.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Ricker
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Millis
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D017072:Neostriatum / Q000473:pathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000473:pathology; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology