Input and Response Determinants of Visual Extinction: A Case Study

We have studied a patient, CZ, with contralateral visual extinction due to a large ischaemic frontal-parietal-temporal lesion in the right hemisphere. We found that manipulation of intensity of the visual stimulus had little effect while an increase in eccentricity substantially increased extinction rate. An important factor was represented by the hemifield of stimulus presentation: when double stimuli were presented to the contralesional (left) hemifield, the leftmost stimulus was consistently extinguished while when stimuli were presented to the ipsilesional (right) hemifield, extinction was absent. Such effect was specific to hemifield rather than to head- and trunk-defined hemispace. Manipulation of response-related variables affected extinction to a large extent: In particular, the use of nonverbal responses diminished extinction considerably. This suggests that an important component of extinction may be represented by an impaired access of visual information to the left hemisphere. Finally, the RT results confirmed previous evidence of an ipsilesional attentional bias favouring the rightmost stimuli both in the contralesional and in the ipsilesional hemifield.

[1]  Philip M. Corsi.  Human memory and the medial temporal region of the brain. , 1972 .

[2]  Phenomena of sensory suppression. , 1946, Archives of neurology and psychiatry.

[3]  G. Shulman,et al.  Spatial determinants of the distribution of attention , 1985, Perception & psychophysics.

[4]  Jenni A Ogden,et al.  Anterior-posterior interhemispheric differences in the loci of lesions producing visual hemineglect , 1985, Brain and Cognition.

[5]  Costanza Papagno,et al.  Unawareness of disease following lesions of the right hemisphere: Anosognosia for hemiplegia and anosognosia for hemianopia , 1986, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  E. Bisiach,et al.  Hemispheric Lateralization of the Decisional Stage in Choice Reaction Times to Visual Unstructured Stimuli , 1982, Cortex.

[7]  M. Posner,et al.  How do the parietal lobes direct covert attention? , 1987, Neuropsychologia.

[8]  J Zihl,et al.  The contribution of the 'second' visual system to directed visual attention in man. , 1979, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[9]  S. Aglioti,et al.  Rightward attentional bias and left hemisphere dominance in a cue-target light detection task in a callosotomy patient , 1997, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  K M Heilman,et al.  A comparison of the influences of body and environment centred reference frames on neglect. , 1994, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[11]  E Làdavas,et al.  Selective spatial attention in patients with visual extinction. , 1990, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[12]  K M Heilman,et al.  Hemispace-visual field interactions in visual extinction. , 1987, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[13]  R. Nebes,et al.  Patterns of Hand Preference in a Student Population , 1975, Cortex.

[14]  M. Albert.  A simple test of visual neglect , 1973, Neurology.

[15]  P. Nathan,et al.  On simultaneous bilateral stimulation of the body in a lesion of the parietal lobe. , 1946, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[16]  M. B. Bender,et al.  Unilateral spatial agnosia (inattention) in patients with cerebral lesions. , 1956, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[17]  C. A. Marzi,et al.  Transfer of visual information after unilateral input to the brain , 1986, Brain and Cognition.

[18]  Bender Mb.  Extinction and other patterns of sensory interaction. , 1977 .

[19]  Daniel B Hier,et al.  Recovery of behavioral abnormalities after right hemisphere stroke , 1983, Neurology.

[20]  C. A. Marzi,et al.  Implicit redundant-targets effect in visual extinction , 1996, Neuropsychologia.

[21]  E. Bisiach,et al.  Mental Representation in Unilateral Neglect and Related Disorders: The Twentieth Bartlett Memorial Lecture , 1993, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[22]  E. Renzi,et al.  Normative Data and Screening Power of a Shortened Version of the Token Test , 1978, Cortex.

[23]  C. Miniussi,et al.  Is Extinction Following Parietal Damage an Interhemispheric Disconnection Phenomenon , 1997 .

[24]  H. Birch,et al.  Delayed information processing and extinction following cerebral damage. , 1967, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[25]  M. Kinsbourne.  Mechanisms of Unilateral Neglect , 1987 .

[26]  K M Heilman,et al.  Hemispatial visual inattention masquerading as hemianopia , 1989, Neurology.

[27]  Jordan Grafman,et al.  Handbook of Neuropsychology , 1991 .

[28]  G Vallar,et al.  Anatomical correlates of visual and tactile extinction in humans: a clinical CT scan study. , 1994, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[29]  Weinstein Ea,et al.  Hemi-inattention and hemisphere specialization: introduction and historical review. , 1977 .

[30]  Edoardo Bisiach,et al.  The Role of the Left Hemisphere in Decision-Making , 1988, Cortex.

[31]  K M Heilman,et al.  Mechanisms underlying the unilateral neglect syndrome. , 1977, Advances in neurology.

[32]  E. Renzi,et al.  Constructional Apraxia and Hemispheric Locus of Lesion , 1964 .

[33]  H. Karnath.  Disturbed coordinate transformation in the neural representation of space as the crucial mechanism leading to neglect , 1994 .

[34]  M. Kinsbourne.  The cerebral basis of lateral asymmetries in attention. , 1970, Acta psychologica.

[35]  L. Chelazzi,et al.  Hemiretinal differences in speed of light detection in esotropic amblyopes , 1988, Vision Research.

[36]  E. Renzi,et al.  An experimental investigation on the nature of extinction , 1995, Neuropsychologia.

[37]  G Vallar,et al.  Influence of response modality on perceptual awareness of contralesional visual stimuli. , 1989, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[38]  Carlo Umiltà,et al.  The Deployment of Visual Attention in the Intact Field of Hemineglect Patients , 1990, Cortex.

[39]  Michael S. Gazzaniga,et al.  Fate of neglected targets: a chronometric analysis of redundant target effects in the bisected brain. , 1995 .