Allocentric spatial neglect with posterior cortical atrophy

Abstract

Patients with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) have been reported to have neglect in the egocentric/ body-centered reference frame. This report describes a woman with PCA who had a right-sided stimulus-based form of allocentric visual neglect on cancellation, reading, and drawing tests. Her brain imaging revealed left parietal atrophy. The pathophysiology of this disorder may be related to an impairment of the ventral “what” stream’s ability to interact with the dorsal “where” stream that mediates the allocation of spatial attention, or a deficit in the systems that allocate contralateral focal attention. Further research is needed to better understand the mechanisms of this disorder and to optimally treat it.

Keywords:

• posterior cortical atrophy
• egocentric neglect
• allocentric neglect
• focal and global attention
• visual processing systems