Abstract
We present the case of a patient with left homonymous hemianopia and chronic left neglect consequent to a stroke in the occipito-temporal regions of the right hemisphere. When the patient performed cancellation tasks with her right (dominant) hand, she had severe and persistent left neglect at retest 7 and 8 years after onset. However, her performance on line bisection was invariably within normal limits. Strikingly, performance on cancellation tests reverted to normal when the patient used her left hand. White matter tractography using spherical deconvolution demonstrated damage to the splenium of the corpus callosum, as well as a relative preservation of the right fronto-parietal network. Effector-dependent neglect may occur because splenial disconnection deprives the right fronto-parietal network from visual information processed by the left hemisphere. Consequently, spatial exploration reverts to normal when the patient uses her left hand, thus involving more directly the fronto-parietal attentional networks in the right-hemisphere.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aboitiz F, Ide A, Olivares R (2003) Corpus callosum morphology in relation to cerebral asymmetries in the postmortem human. In: Zaidel E, Iacoboni M (eds) The parallel brain: the cognitive neuroscience of the corpus callosum. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 33–49
Albert ML (1973) A simple test of visual neglect. Neurology 23:658–664
Ay H, Buonanno FS, Price BH et al (1998) Sensory alien hand syndrome: case report and review of the literature. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr 65:366–369
Bartolomeo P (2012) The elusive nature of white matter damage in anatomo-clinical correlations. Front Hum Neurosci 6:229. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00229
Bartolomeo P (2014a) Attention disorders after right brain damage: living in halved worlds. Springer, London
Bartolomeo P (2014b) Spatially biased decisions: toward a dynamic interactive model of visual neglect. In: Tracy JI, Hampstead B, Sathian K (eds) Plasticity of Cognition in Neurologic Disorders (in press)
Bartolomeo P, Thiebaut de Schotten M, Doricchi F (2007) Left unilateral neglect as a disconnection syndrome. Cereb Cortex 17:2479–2490. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl181
Berlucchi G (2013) Visual interhemispheric communication and callosal connections of the occipital lobes. Cortex. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2013.02.001
Berlucchi G, Aglioti S, Tassinari G (1997) Rightward attentional bias and left hemisphere dominance in a cue-target light detection task in a callosotomy patient. Neuropsychologia 35:941–952
Binder J, Marshall R, Lazar R et al (1992) Distinct syndromes of hemineglect. Arch Neurol 49:1187–1194
Bird CM, Malhotra P, Parton A et al (2006) Visual neglect after right posterior cerebral artery infarction. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr 77:1008–1012. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2006.094417
Bourgeois A, Chica AB, Migliaccio R et al (2012) Cortical control of inhibition of return: evidence from patients with inferior parietal damage and visual neglect. Neuropsychologia 50:800–809. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.01.014
Bozzali M, Mastropasqua C, Cercignani M et al (2012) Microstructural damage of the posterior corpus callosum contributes to the clinical severity of neglect. PLoS One 7:e48079. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048079
Catani M, Howard RJ, Pajevic S, Jones DK (2002) Virtual in vivo interactive dissection of white matter fasciculi in the human brain. Neuroimage 17:77–94
Catani M, Thiebaut de Schotten M (2008) A diffusion tensor imaging tractography atlas for virtual in vivo dissections. Cortex 44:1105–1132. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2008.05.004
Charras P, Lupiáñez J, Bartolomeo P (2010) Assessing the weights of visual neglect: a new approach to dissociate defective symptoms from productive phenomena in length estimation. Neuropsychologia 48:3371–3375. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.07.006
Charras P, Lupiáñez J, Migliaccio R et al (2012) Dissecting the component deficits of perceptual imbalance in visual neglect: evidence from horizontal-vertical length comparisons. Cortex 48:540–552. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2011.01.008
Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Humphreys GW (2012) Neuroanatomical dissections of unilateral visual neglect symptoms: ALE meta-analysis of lesion-symptom mapping. Front Hum Neurosci 6:230. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00230
Chokron S, Dupierrix E, Tabert M, Bartolomeo P (2007) Experimental remission of unilateral spatial neglect. Neuropsychologia 45:3127–3148. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.08.001
Ciaraffa F, Castelli G, Parati EA et al (2013) Visual neglect as a disconnection syndrome? A confirmatory case report. Neurocase 19:351–359. doi:10.1080/13554794.2012.667130
Corballis MC, Corballis PM, Fabri M et al (2005) Now you see it, now you don’t: variable hemineglect in a commissurotomized man. Cogn Brain Res 25:521–530. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2005.08.002
Corbetta M, Shulman GL (2002) Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 3:201–215. doi:10.1038/nrn755
Corbetta M, Kincade MJ, Lewis C et al (2005) Neural basis and recovery of spatial attention deficits in spatial neglect. Nat Neurosci 8:1603–1610. doi:10.1038/nn1574
Dell’Acqua F, Catani M (2012) Structural human brain networks: hot topics in diffusion tractography. Curr Opin Neurol 25:375–383. doi:10.1097/WCO.0b013e328355d544
Dell’acqua F, Scifo P, Rizzo G et al (2010) A modified damped Richardson-Lucy algorithm to reduce isotropic background effects in spherical deconvolution. Neuroimage 49:1446–1458. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.09.033
Dell’acqua F, Simmons A, Williams SCR, Catani M (2012) Can spherical deconvolution provide more information than fiber orientations? Hindrance modulated orientational anisotropy, a true-tract specific index to characterize white matter diffusion. Hum Brain Mapp. doi:10.1002/hbm.22080
Doricchi F, Tomaiuolo F (2003) The anatomy of neglect without hemianopia: a key role for parietal-frontal disconnection? NeuroReport 14:2239–2243. doi:10.1097/01.wnr.0000091132.75061.64
Gaffan D, Hornak J (1997) Visual neglect in the monkey. Representation and disconnection. Brain 120(Pt 9):1647–1657
Gainotti G, Tiacci C (1970) Patterns of drawing disability in right and left hemispheric patients. Neuropsychologia 8:379–384
Goldenberg G (1986) Neglect in a patient with partial callosal disconnection. Neuropsychologia 24:397–403
Halligan PW, Marshall JC (1989) Laterality of motor response in visuo-spatial neglect: a case study. Neuropsychologia 27:1301–1307
Heilman KM, Adams DJ (2003) Callosal neglect. Arch Neurol 60:276–279
Jang SH, Lee J, Yeo SS, Chang MC (2012) Callosal disconnection syndrome after corpus callosum infarct: a diffusion tensor tractography study. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. doi:10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2012.10.015
Joanette Y, Brouchon M, Gauthier L, Samson M (1986) Pointing with left vs right hand in left visual field neglect. Neuropsychologia 24:391–396
Johnston CW, Diller L (1986) Exploratory eye movements and visual hemi-neglect. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 8:93–101. doi:10.1080/01688638608401299
Jones DK (2004) The effect of gradient sampling schemes on measures derived from diffusion tensor MRI: a Monte Carlo study. Magn Reson Med 51:807–815. doi:10.1002/mrm.20033
Karnath H-O, Fruhmann Berger M, Küker W, Rorden C (2004) The anatomy of spatial neglect based on voxelwise statistical analysis: a study of 140 patients. Cereb Cortex 14:1164–1172. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh076
Kashiwagi A, Kashiwagi T, Nishikawa T et al (1990) Hemispatial neglect in a patient with callosal infarction. Brain 113(Pt 4):1005–1023
Keller I, Schindler I, Kerkhoff G et al (2005) Visuospatial neglect in near and far space: dissociation between line bisection and letter cancellation. Neuropsychologia 43:724–731. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.08.003
Kinsbourne M (1987) Mechanisms of unilateral neglect. Neurophysiological and neuropsychological aspects of spatial neglect. Elsevier Science Ltd, Amsterdam, pp 69–86
Koch G, Veniero D, Caltagirone C (2012) To the other side of the neglected brain: the hyperexcitability of the left intact hemisphere. Neuroscientist. doi:10.1177/1073858412447874
Laplane D, Degos JD (1983) Motor neglect. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr 46:152–158
Leemans A, Jones DK (2009) The B-matrix must be rotated when correcting for subject motion in DTI data. Magn Reson Med 61:1336–1349. doi:10.1002/mrm.21890
Leibovitch FS, Black SE, Caldwell CB et al (1998) Brain-behavior correlations in hemispatial neglect using CT and SPECT The Sunnybrook Stroke Study. Neurology 50:901–908. doi:10.1212/WNL.50.4.901
Marquardt DW (1963) An algorithm for least-squares estimation of nonlinear parameters. J Soc Ind Appl Math 11:431–441. doi:10.2307/2098941
Mesulam M-M (1985) Principles of behavioral neurology. F.A. Davis, Philadelphia
Migliaccio R, Bouhali F, Rastelli F et al (2014) Damage to the medial motor system in stroke patients with motor neglect. Front Hum Neurosci 8:408. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00408
Molenberghs P, Sale MV, Mattingley JB (2012) Is there a critical lesion site for unilateral spatial neglect? A meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation. Front Hum Neurosci 6:78. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00078
Mort DJ, Malhotra P, Mannan SK et al (2003) The anatomy of visual neglect. Brain 126:1986–1997. doi:10.1093/brain/awg200
Oldfield RC (1971) The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia 9:97–113
Ortigue S, Mégevand P, Perren F et al (2006) Double dissociation between representational personal and extrapersonal neglect. Neurology 66:1414–1417. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000210440.49932.e7
Park KC, Jeong Y, Lee BH et al (2005) Left hemispatial visual neglect associated with a combined right occipital and splenial lesion: another disconnection syndrome. Neurocase 11:310–318. doi:10.1080/13554790591006177
Park KC, Lee BH, Kim EJ et al (2006) Deafferentation-disconnection neglect induced by posterior cerebral artery infarction. Neurology 66:56–61. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000191306.67582.7a
Robertson IH, Hawkins K (1999) Limb activation and unilateral neglect. Neurocase 5:153–160. doi:10.1080/13554799908415479
Rode G, Cotton F, Revol P et al (2010) Representation and disconnection in imaginal neglect. Neuropsychologia 48:2903–2911. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.05.032
Rorden C, Fruhmann Berger M, Karnath H-O (2006) Disturbed line bisection is associated with posterior brain lesions. Brain Res 1080:17–25. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2004.10.071
Rossetti Y, Rode G (2002) Reducing spatial neglect by visual and other sensory manipulations. In: Karnath H-O, Milner AD, Vallar G (eds) The cognitive and neural bases of spatial neglect, Oxford university Press, pp 375–396
Schenkenberg T, Bradford DC, Ajax ET (1980) Line bisection and unilateral visual neglect in patients with neurologic impairment. Neurology 30:509–517
Thiebaut de Schotten M, Urbanski M, Duffau H et al (2005) Direct evidence for a parietal-frontal pathway subserving spatial awareness in humans. Science 309:2226–2228. doi:10.1126/science.1116251
Thiebaut de Schotten M, Dell’Acqua F, Forkel SJ et al (2011) A lateralized brain network for visuospatial attention. Nat Neurosci 14:1245–1246. doi:10.1038/nn.2905
Thiebaut de Schotten M, Tomaiuolo F, Aiello M et al (2012) Damage to white matter pathways in subacute and chronic spatial neglect: a group study and 2 single-case studies with complete virtual “in vivo” tractography dissection. Cereb Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs351
Tomaiuolo F, Voci L, Bresci M et al (2010) Selective visual neglect in right brain damaged patients with splenial interhemispheric disconnection. Exp Brain Res 206:209–217. doi:10.1007/s00221-010-2230-6
Urbanski M, Thiebaut de Schotten M, Rodrigo S et al (2008) Brain networks of spatial awareness: evidence from diffusion tensor imaging tractography. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr 79:598–601. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2007.126276
Urbanski M, Thiebaut de Schotten M, Rodrigo S et al (2011) DTI-MR tractography of white matter damage in stroke patients with neglect. Exp Brain Res 208:491–505. doi:10.1007/s00221-010-2496-8
Vallar G, Perani D (1986) The anatomy of unilateral neglect after right-hemisphere stroke lesions: a clinical/CT-scan correlation study in man. Neuropsychologia 24:609–622
Verdon V, Schwartz S, Lovblad K-O et al (2010) Neuroanatomy of hemispatial neglect and its functional components: a study using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Brain 133:880–894. doi:10.1093/brain/awp305
Wedeen VJ, Wang RP, Schmahmann JD et al (2008) Diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging (DSI) tractography of crossing fibers. Neuroimage 41:1267–1277. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.03.036
Witelson SF (1989) Hand and sex differences in the isthmus and genu of the human corpus callosum: a postmortem morphological study. Brain 112(Pt 3):799–835
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lunven, M., De Schotten, M.T., Glize, B. et al. Effector-dependent neglect and splenial disconnection: a spherical deconvolution tractography study. Exp Brain Res 232, 3727–3736 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4051-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4051-5