Increased Cognitive Load Reveals Unilateral Neglect and Altitudinal Extinction in Chronic Stroke
(2019) Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society — Vol. 25, n° 6, p. 644-653 (2019)
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- Abstract
- Objective: Neuropsychological studies suggest that the ability to compensate for the presence of spatial neglect highly depends on the attentional resources a patient can rely on. The present research aimed to study neglect in situations where attentional resources are limited due to multitasking. Method: We examined two patients more than 3 years after a right-hemispheric stroke. Both had received neuropsychological rehabilitation for left neglect and did not show any impairment in standard tests. We used a dual-task paradigm combining a peripheral target detection task with a central shape recognition task. Peripheral targets could appear in left/right positions but also in lower/upper positions. Results: In patient #1, dual-task condition exacerbated left neglect and extinction. Patient #2 did not show any sign of neglect along the horizontal axis, but omitted half of the lower targets when they were presented simultaneously with upper targets under dual-task condition. This behavior reflects altitudinal extinction as the detection of single targets appearing either in upper or lower position was preserved. Conclusion: The present findings show that dual-tasking is a sensitive tool for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of spatial attention deficits, which are often overlooked by standard methods, especially in chronic stage.
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Andres, M., Geers, L., Marnette, S., Coyette, F., Bonato, M., Priftis, K., & Masson, N. (2019). Increased Cognitive Load Reveals Unilateral Neglect and Altitudinal Extinction in Chronic Stroke. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 25(6), 644-653. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1355617719000249 (Original work published 2019)