Neural substrates of neglect: Speculations and animal models

Abstract

My position statement on neglect is more of an agenda for further research than an attempt at explanation. I assume that neglect, caused, for example, by right parietal damage, results neither form simple sensory loss and nor from motor impairment. It also appears not to be a unitary disorder. Failures to orient towards salient stimuli, often labelled as “neglect”, can occur because of damage to other brain regions besides the parietal lobe, and in animals other than man. But failures to orient toward stimuli can result from several different types of difficulty. most crudely to organise a response towards the contralesional side (“output” or “intentional” neglect (Valenstein & Heilman, 1981) or from problems of detecting stimuli in contralesional space (“input” neglect). Sometimes these forms of neglect apparently occur together in the same individual, raising questions about the foci and extent of their brain lesions.