Right hemisphere dominance for attention: the mechanism underlying hemispheric asymmetries of inattention (neglect)

Abstract

Because hemiinattention is most commonly caused by right parietal lesions, it is possible that the left hemisphere attends to contralateral stimuli whereas the right attends to both contralateral and ipsilateral stimuli. We gave lateralized visual stimuli to 12 normal subjects and recorded the electroencephalograms. Desynchronization was determined by comparing the alpha power 1 second before and 1 second after a lateralized visual stimulus. Although the left parietal lobe desynchronized most after right-sided stimuli, the right parietal lobe desynchronized equally after right or left stimuli. These findings support the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is dominant for attention.