Neglect syndromes

Question 1

(contralateral) Hemispatial neglect syndrome

Answer 1

Damage to right inferior parietal cortex. Often due to stroke. Leads to neglect of stimuli in the left visual field. It’s not a sensory deficit but attentional. You ignore what you see left. Bottom up network is damaged.

Question 2

Bisection task

Answer 2

To check for contralateral neglect. bisect the line at the right

Question 3

Extintion

Answer 3

Often seen if recovered from visual neglect. Pref. for right side if two stimuli in both fields are presented

Question 4

Balint’s syndrome

Answer 4

Severe neglect, no recovery. Damage to large part of cortex with following charact. :

Simultaneagnosia; only able to attend to one object at a time
Optic ataxia ; problems grasping/reaching for objects
Occularomotor apraxia; voluntary eye movements impaired

Question 5

Parietal lobe

Answer 5

These syndromes show the importance of the parietal lobe (especially right) in attention control

Question 6

Superior colliculi damage

Answer 6

results in slowed eye movements

Question 7

Sprague effect

Answer 7

Hemispatial neglect from parietal lesions can be cancelled by a lesion on the superior colliculus on the opposite side. The imbalance that was created by parietal lesion is restored by creating a lesion in the superior colliculi.