Memories are made of this: the effects of time on stored visual knowledge in a case of visual agnosia.
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We report the effects of the passage of time on the longterm visual knowledge for objects in a patient with visual agnosia (H.J.A.). The naming of real objects was found to have improved, although this was not associated with any change in H.J.A.'s basic perceptual abilities which were stable over a 16-year period. The improvement in object naming was attributed to better use of non-contour-based visual information (such as surface detail and depth cues). In addition, we demonstrate a deterioration in H.J.A.'s long-term memory for the visual properties of objects, and argue that this has occurred as a result of his having impaired perceptual input. The deterioration was only apparent in drawing from memory and in the verbal descriptions of items; with forced-choice testing, H.J.A. operated at ceiling; we propose that current tests of visual imagery may not be sufficiently sensitive to detect subtle impairments of visual memory. Our findings can be taken to indicate that perceptual and memorial processes are not functionally independent, but are linked in an interactive manner. (+info)
Topographical disorientation: a synthesis and taxonomy.
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Over the last century, several dozen case reports have presented 'topographically disoriented' patients who, in some cases, appear to have selectively lost their ability to find their way within large-scale, locomotor environments. A review is offered here that has as its aim the creation of a taxonomy that accurately reflects the behavioural impairments and neuroanatomical findings of this literature. This effort is guided by an appreciation of the models of normative way-finding offered by environmental psychology and recent neuroscience research. It is proposed that several varieties of topographical disorientation exist, resulting from damage to distinct neuroanatomical areas. The particular pattern of impairments that patients evidence is argued to be consonant with the known functions of these cortical regions and with recent neuroimaging results. The conflicting claims of previous reviews of this area are also considered and addressed. (+info)
Unconscious letter discrimination is enhanced by association with conscious color perception in visual form agnosia.
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Adaptive behavior guided by unconscious visual cues occurs in patients with various kinds of brain damage as well as in normal observers, all of whom can process visual information of which they are fully unaware [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. Little is known on the possibility that unconscious vision is influenced by visual cues that have access to consciousness [9]. Here we report a 'blind' letter discrimination induced through a semantic interaction with conscious color processing in a patient who is agnosic for visual shapes, but has normal color vision and visual imagery. In seeing the initial letters of color names printed in different colors, it is normally easier to name the print color when it is congruent with the initial letter of the color name than when it is not [10]. The patient could discriminate the initial letters of the words 'red' and 'green' printed in the corresponding colors significantly above chance but without any conscious accompaniment, whereas he performed at chance with the reverse color-letter mapping as well as in standard tests of letter reading. We suggest that the consciously perceived colors activated a representation of the corresponding word names and their component letters, which in turn brought out a partially successful, unconscious processing of visual inputs corresponding to the activated letter representations. (+info)
Receptive amusia: evidence for cross-hemispheric neural networks underlying music processing strategies.
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Perceptual musical functions were investigated in patients suffering from unilateral cerebrovascular cortical lesions. Using MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technique, a standardized short test battery was established that covers local (analytical) as well as global perceptual mechanisms. These represent the principal cognitive strategies in melodic and temporal musical information processing (local, interval and rhythm; global, contour and metre). Of the participating brain-damaged patients, a total of 69% presented with post-lesional impairments in music perception. Left-hemisphere-damaged patients showed significant deficits in the discrimination of local as well as global structures in both melodic and temporal information processing. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients also revealed an overall impairment of music perception, reaching significance in the temporal conditions. Detailed analysis outlined a hierarchical organization, with an initial right-hemisphere recognition of contour and metre followed by identification of interval and rhythm via left-hemisphere subsystems. Patterns of dissociated and associated melodic and temporal deficits indicate autonomous, yet partially integrated neural subsystems underlying the processing of melodic and temporal stimuli. In conclusion, these data contradict a strong hemispheric specificity for music perception, but indicate cross-hemisphere, fragmented neural substrates underlying local and global musical information processing in the melodic and temporal dimensions. Due to the diverse profiles of neuropsychological deficits revealed in earlier investigations as well as in this study, individual aspects of musicality and musical behaviour very likely contribute to the definite formation of these widely distributed neural networks. (+info)
Illusory limb movements in anosognosia for hemiplegia.
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To clarify the relation between anosognosia for hemiplegia and confabulation, 11 patients with acute right cerebral infarctions and left upper limb hemiparesis were assessed for anosognosia for hemiplegia, illusory limb movements (ILMs), hemispatial neglect, asomatognosia, and cognitive impairment. Five of 11 patients had unequivocal confabulation as evidenced by ILMs. The presence of ILMs was associated with the degree of anosognosia (p = 0.002), with hemispatial neglect (p<0.05), and with asomatognosia (p<0.01). The results confirm that a strong relation exists between anosognosia for hemiplegia and confabulations concerning the movement of the plegic limb. There is also a strong relation between ILMs and asomatognosia. (+info)
Hemianopic colour blindness.
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A man developed cortical blindness after cerebral infarction in the distribution of both posterior cerebral arteries. When he recovered from this condition, he was found to be colour blind in the left visual field, but not in the right. This unusual situation resulted in apparently contradictory performances on hemifield and free-field tasks of colour discrimination, naming, and recognition. The contradictions may be explained by interhemispheric competition between a hemisphere which could discriminate colours and a hemisphere which was colour blind. (+info)
Patterns of music agnosia associated with middle cerebral artery infarcts.
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The objective of the study is to evaluate if the rupture of an aneurysm located on the middle cerebral artery (MCA) results in disorders of music recognition. To this aim, 20 patients having undergone brain surgery for the clipping of a unilateral left (LBS), right (RBS) or bilateral (BBS) aneurysm(s) of the MCA and 20 neurologically intact control subjects (NC) were evaluated with a series of tests assessing most of the abilities involved in music recognition. In general, the study shows that a ruptured aneurysm on the MCA that is repaired by brain surgery is very likely to produce deficits in the auditory processing of music. The incidence of such a deficit was not only very high but also selective. The results show that the LBS group was more impaired than the NC group in all three tasks involving musical long-term memory. The study also uncovered two new cases of apperceptive agnosia for music. These two patients (N.R. and R.C.) were diagnosed as such because both exhibit a clear deficit in each of the three music memory tasks and both are impaired in all discrimination tests involving musical perception. Interestingly, the lesions overlap in the right superior temporal lobe and in the right insula, making the two new cases very similar to an earlier case report. Altogether, the results are also consistent with the view that apperceptive agnosia results from damage to right hemispheric structures while associative agnosia results from damage to the left hemisphere. (+info)
Time-dependent activation of parieto-frontal networks for directing attention to tactile space. A study with paired transcranial magnetic stimulation pulses in right-brain-damaged patients with extinction.
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Tactile extinction has been interpreted as an attentional disorder, closely related to hemineglect, due to hyperactivation of the unaffected hemisphere, resulting in an ipsilesional attentional bias. Paired transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques, with a subthreshold conditioning stimulus (CS) followed at various interstimulus intervals (ISIs) by a suprathreshold test stimulus (TS), are useful for investigating intracortical inhibition and facilitation in the human motor cortex. In the present work, we investigated the effects of paired TMS over the posterior parietal and frontal cortex of the unaffected hemisphere in a group of eight right-brain-damaged patients with tactile extinction who were carrying out a bimanual tactile discrimination task. The aim of the study was to verify if paired TMS could induce selective inhibition or facilitation of the unaffected hemisphere depending on the ISI, resulting, respectively, in an improvement and a worsening of contralesional extinction. In addition, we wanted to investigate if the effects of parietal and frontal TMS on contralesional extinction appeared at different intervals, suggesting time-dependent activation in the cortical network for the processing of tactile spatial information. Paired TMS stimuli with a CS and a TS, separated by two ISIs of 1 and 10 ms, were applied over the left parietal and frontal cortex after various intervals from the presentation of bimanual cutaneous stimuli. Single-test parietal TMS stimuli improved the patients' performance, whereas paired TMS had distinct effects depending on the ISI: at ISI = 1 ms the improvement in extinction was greater than that induced by single-pulse TMS; at ISI = 10 ms we observed worsening of extinction, with complete reversal of the effects of single-pulse TMS. Compared with TMS delivered over the frontal cortex, parietal TMS improved the extinction rate in a time window that began earlier. These findings shed further light on the mechanism of tactile extinction, suggesting relative hyperexcitability of the parieto-frontal network in the unaffected hemisphere, which is amenable to study and modulation by paired TMS pulses. In addition, the results show time-dependent processing of tactile spatial information in the parietal and frontal cortices, with a bimodal distribution of activity, at least in the attentional network of the unaffected hemisphere. (+info)