Unilateral damage Flashcards
When did neuropsychology occur?
- Clinical Neuropsychology (WWI and II) - Localisation of function (Language two different areas in the brain, Broca1861, Wernicke, 1874). Soldiers who were damaged by bullet wounds
- Cognitive Neuropsychology - Cognitive effects of brain damage (models), looking a where damage is and behaviour shown, making a link
- Cognitive Neuroscience - Biological substrates of cognition e.g. what happens to the neurotransmitters and chemicals in the brain after damage
What is clinical neuropsychology?
- Psychologists increasingly interested in single case patient studies (1960’s -)
- Aim was to make a link between brain damage and behaviour
- Difficult to do, single case patient studies, basing all your findings through one patient
- But largely a description of deficits and localisation difficult
What is unilateral neglect?
- Following right hemisphere brain damage a patient without impairment of intellectual functioning appears to ignore, forget or turn away from the left side of space-as if that half of the world has ceased to exist…
- Mesulam, (1985, as cited in Robertson and Marshall, 1993)
- Failure to respond, report or acknowledge to the opposite side of the brain damage
- Occurs when there is damage to the right hemisphere of the brain, ignoring everything on the left side
- Intellectually the patient is fine
What happened in the 1970s with neuropsychology and how can it be applied?
- 1970’s-90’s -Went beyond description of deficits and localisation
- We can learn about cognitive systems by studying how they breakdown after brain damage (Coltheart –Scholarpedia)
- Applications: -Assessment and Rehabilitation, for different neurological disorders etc
Brain (1941): 3 patients with right parieto-occipital damage, first ever neglect patients
- Case 5 “When asked to describe how she would find her way from the tube station to her flat she described this in detail correctly and apparently visualising the landmarks, but she consistently said right instead of left for the turnings except on one occasion.”
- 99% of the time they’ll tell you to make a right hand turn
Cases with missile wound right parieto-occipital region (including angular gyrus) - Paterson and Zangwill (1944) 2 cases
- Case 1 “The patient often collided with objects located on his left which he had clearly perceived a few moments before. He was liable to knock over dishes on his left-hand side and occasionally missed food on the left-side of his plate.”
- Case 2 (right parietal damage) “It was noticed that the patient totally neglected his left upper extremity (of his own body) despite good preservation of motor power”
Unilateral neglect is also called:
- Hemi-inattention
- Visual neglect
- Visual spatial neglect
- Unilateral spatial neglect
-Contralesional
(opposite side to brain damage)
-Ipsilesional
(same side as brain damage)
-Hemianopia
(a visual field defect)
What is Extinction?
- Patients do not report left-hand stimulus when it is paired with a right-hand stimulus
- Sometimes described as mild form of neglect
- Others consider it a separate related disorder
- Not just visual modality, tactile and even cross modal
- This is known as extinction
- Tested by being able to identify whether left, right or both hands are being waved
- Patient can identify right and left independently, but not both
Everyday examples of neglect
- Patients may:
- Eat food on the right hand side of plate only
- Dress only the right side of own body
- Shave the right side of their own face
- Deviate to right and may even go around in a circle
Clinical Tests of Neglect in Patients
- 1. Drawing
- from memory
- Copying
- Give the patient a simple drawing, asked to copy (usually a clock or daisy)
- Only ever draw the right hand side
Clinical Tests of Neglect in Patients
-2. Line bisection
- Give the patient horizontal line, asked to mark the middle of the line
- Found that they mark nearer to the right
Clinical Tests of Neglect in Patients
-3. Cancellation tasks
- Give the patient a page of symbols, ask to circle certain symbols
- Leave the left hand side uncircled
Clinical Tests of Neglect in Patients
-4. Reading
- Single words -neglect dyslexia
- Text reading -whole word omissions
- Missing out certain parts of words
What is neglect and how does it occur?
- Is most commonly caused by a stroke
- Stroke – Affects ~ 150,000 people in UK each year
- Brain needs supply of oxygen and blood
- Blood supply to part of brain is cut off - Resulting in damaged tissue
- Blockage occurs in the middle of the cerebral artery
- Neglect
Nature of Brain Damage associated with Neglect
- Neglect is most commonly observed in humans following damage to the right hemisphere (left neglect)
- Left hemisphere damage rarely leads to neglect, therefore only in the right
- Damage in the Posterior parietal cortex (Specifically Inferior parietal lobe)
- Brodman’s areas 39 and 40 (dorsal ‘where’ visual pathway)
- Left parietal damage rarely produces right sided neglect (and quickly recovers)
- Also some cases following sub-cortical damage
- Thalamus, basal ganglia, white matter (most to least involved)
- The right parietal cortex appears to play a dominant role in spatial cognition in humans
Right Hemisphere regions associated with Neglect
- IPL – Ang and Smg
- MFG
- IFG
What was Vallar & Perani, 1986 contour map?
- Contour map of lesion location of 8 patients with neglect. Right inferior parietal lobe (IPL)
- Damage to any cortical areas causes neglect