Spatial Neglect and Attention Networks

Unilateral spatial neglect is a common neurological syndrome following predominantly right hemisphere injuries and is characterized by both spatial and non-spatial deficits. Core spatial deficits involve mechanisms for saliency coding, spatial attention, and short-term memory and occur in conjunction with nonspatial deficits that involve reorienting, target detection, and arousal/vigilance. We argue that neglect is better explained by the dysfunction of distributed cortical networks for the control of attention than by structural damage of specific brain regions. Ventral lesions in right parietal, temporal, and frontal cortex that cause neglect directly impair nonspatial functions partly mediated by a ventral…

• UO
  University of Pennsylvania
• JH
  Johns Hopkins University
• UO
  University of Oregon
• UC
  University College London
• UD
  Université de Genève
• MR
  Medical Research Council
• NI
  National Institute of Mental Health
• NI
  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development