Neglect severity after left and right brain damage.
While unilateral spatial neglect after left brain damage is undoubtedly less common than spatial neglect after a right hemisphere lesion, it is also assumed to be less severe. Here we directly test this latter hypothesis using a continuous measure of neglect severity: the so-called Center of Cancellation (CoC). Rorden and Karnath (2010) recently validated this index for right brain damaged neglect patients. A first aim of the present study was to evaluate this new measure for spatial neglect after left brain damage. In a group of 48 left-sided stroke patients with and without neglect, a score greater than -0.086 on the Bells Test and greater than -0.024 on the Letter Cancellation Task turned out to indicate neglect behavior for acute left brain damaged patients. A second aim was to directly compare the severity of spatial neglect after left versus right brain injury by using the new CoC measure. While neglect is less frequent following left than right hemisphere injury, we found that when this symptom occurs it is of similar severity in acute left brain injury as in patients after acute right brain injury.
Center of Neurology, Division of Neuropsychology, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Julia
J
Suchan
Chris
C
Rorden
Hans-Otto
HO
Karnath
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D055815:Young Adult