What is visuospatial deficit?

Abstract. Visuospatial neglect constitutes a supramodal cognitive deficit characterized by reduction or loss of spatial awareness for the contralesional space. It occurs in over 40% of right- and 20% of left-brain-lesioned stroke patients with lesions located mostly in parietal, frontal and subcortical brain areas.

Why does visuospatial neglect only affect one side?

Right-sided spatial neglect is rare because there is redundant processing of the right space by both the left and right cerebral hemispheres, whereas in most left-dominant brains the left space is only processed by the right cerebral hemisphere.

What causes unilateral spatial neglect?

Unilateral spatial neglect occurs as a result of damage to the posterior parietal cortex, frontal lobe, cingulate gyrus, striatum, thalamus, or specific brain-stem nuclei. This neural network for attention is an excellent example of how different anatomic areas work together to produce a specific behavior.

What are visuospatial abilities?

Visuospatial ability refers to a person’s capacity to identify visual and spatial relationships among objects. Visuospatial ability is measured in terms of the ability to imagine objects, to make global shapes by locating small components, or to understand the differences and similarities between objects.

Is neglect a perceptual disorder?

Hemispatial neglect is a neurological disorder characterized by a failure to represent information appearing in the hemispace contralateral to a brain lesion. In addition to the perceptual consequences of hemispatial neglect, several authors have reported that hemispatial neglect impairs visually guided movements.

What is visuospatial orienting?

Attention is the process by which we select stimuli in our environment for perception and action. The ability to orient to salient visual stimuli and to parse the visual world begins to emerge in the first few months of life and continues to evolve through childhood.