Visuospatial attention deficit in patients with local brain lesions.
The disability of visuospatial attention can lead to poor volitional movement and functional recovery in patients with brain lesions. However, the accurate clinical method to assess visuospatial attention is limited. The frontoparietal network including the posterior parietal cortex and the frontal eye fields has been shown to involve in visuospatial attention. The Attention Network Test provided measures for three different components of visuospatial attention: alerting, orienting and executive control. This study was to probe the deficit and relationship of visuospatial attention using Attention Network Test paradigm in patients with frontoparietal network lesions. During this task, patients responded significantly slower on each cue condition and target type than controls, and showed deficits in the alerting and orienting networks. The efficiency of resolving conflict was decreased in patients with frontal lesions whereas this was increased in patients with parietal lesions. These findings suggest that the frontoparietal network is involved in the alerting and orienting attentional function and the executive function is possibly selectively associated with the frontal lobe. The Attention Network Test paradigm produces sensitive, valid and reliable subject estimates of visuospatial attention function in patients with brain lesions, and may be useful for clinical rehabilitation strategy selection for patients with the frontoparietal network lesions.
Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, 58 Zhongshan Road II, Guangzhou, 510080 China.
Guang-Qing
GQ
Xu
Yue
Y
Lan
Dong-Feng
DF
Huang
De-Zhong
DZ
Rao
Zhong
Z
Pei
Ling
L
Chen
Jin-Sheng
JS
Zeng
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003463:Cues; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*