title: Auditory deficits in visuospatial neglect patients.
abstract: Since the pioneering experimental work of Bisiach et al. (1984) on deficits in sound localisation associated with unilateral brain lesions and visual neglect, a number of systematic investigations have examined auditory processing in visuospatial neglect patients. Evidence from a variety of experimental paradigms has revealed some auditory deficits in detection and identification tasks, during bilateral stimulation; plus localisation deficits for single sounds. These deficits emerge predominantly for contra-lesional sounds, although some auditory disturbances applying to both contra- and ipsilesional sounds have also been documented. Here we review evidence suggesting that some of these auditory deficits arise in relatively high-level stages of spatial processing. In addition, we present new analyses showing that auditory deficits in identification and localisation tasks often correlate with clinical measures of visual neglect, across a variety of different studies and tasks. This empirical relation suggests that a disturbance of multisensory spatial processing may often account for the joint auditory and visual spatial deficits in neglect patients, although rarer dissociations between the modalities should also be considered.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze della Cognizione e della Formazione, Università di Trento, Italy. pavani@form.unitn.it
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pavani
authors.forename: Masud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Husain
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ládavas
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Driver
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests; D004056:Differential Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology