Dissociated neglect behavior following sequential strokes in the right hemisphere

Abstract

A 42-year-old woman suffered two focal right hemisphere strokes, sequentially damaging different components of a proposed cerebral network for the spatial distribution of attention. Her first stroke was centered in the right frontal lobe and resulted in left hemi-spatial neglect but only for tasks that emphasize exploratory-motor components of directed attention. A second stroke occurred 20 days later in the parietal lobe and led to the emergence of perceptual-sensory aspects of neglect. This case strongly supports the existence of a distributed anatomic-functional network subserving directed attention.