Pseudo-neglect in Huntington's disease correlates with decreased angular gyrus density.
Visuospatial attentional bias was examined in Huntington's disease (HD) patients with mild disease, asymptomatic gene-positive patients and controls. No group differences were found on the grey scales task (which is a non-motor task of visuospatial attentional bias), although patients' trinucleotide (CAG) repeat length correlated with increasing leftward bias. On the line bisection task, symptomatic patients made significantly larger leftward bisection errors relative to controls, who showed the normal slight degree of leftward error (pseudo-neglect). The asymptomatic group showed a trend for greater leftward error than controls. A subset of participants went on to have structural MRI, which showed a correlation between increased leftward error on the line bisection task and reduced density in the angular gyrus area (BA39) bilaterally. This finding is consistent with recent literature suggesting a critical role for the angular gyrus in the lateralization of visuospatial attention.
Ho
Aileen K
AK
Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair, University of Cambridge, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge, UK. aileenkho@netscape.net
Nestor
Peter J
PJ
Williams
Guy B
GB
Bradshaw
John L
JL
Sahakian
Barbara J
BJ
Robbins
Trevor W
TW
Barker
Roger A
RA
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000473:pathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*