title: Visual recognition and visually guided action after early bilateral lesion of occipital cortex: a behavioral study of a 4.6-year-old girl.
abstract: We report the case of a 4.6-year-old girl born pre-term with early bilateral occipital damage. It was revealed that the child had non-severely impaired basic visual abilities and ocular motility, a selective perceptual deficit of figure-ground segregation, impaired visual recognition and abnormal navigating through space. Even if the child's visual functioning was not optimal, this was the expression of adaptive anatomic and functional brain modifications that occurred following the early lesion. Anatomic brain structure was studied with anatomic MRI and Diffusor Tensor Imaging (DTI)-MRI. This behavioral study may provide an important contribution to understanding the impact of an early lesion of the visual system on the development of visual functions and on the immature brain's potential for reorganisation related to when the damage occurred.
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Rehabilitation Department, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy. ileami@yahoo.it
authors.forename: Ileana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Amicuzi
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stortini
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petrarca
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Di Giulio
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Rosa
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fariello
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Longo
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cannatà
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Genovese
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Castelli
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*