The rod orientation test in patients with right-hemisphere infarction : a clinical study of spatial perception in 154 subjects
Year: 1982
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This thesis describes a clinical study of disturbances of spatial perception.\nChapter I gives a short review of hemispheric asymmetry. For a long time\nthe right hemisphere was regarded as the minor hemisphere, of which\nsubstantial regions were thought to have no specific function. Jackson,\nhowever, believed that the posterior area of the right hemisphere played a\ncrucial role in subserving visual recognition and visual memory, but few of\nhis contemporaries agreed with him.\nLater Rieger, Babinski and Dide also stressed the importance of the right\nposterior region in spatial tasks. But is was not until more comprehensive\nstudies had been done in the 1950's (Hecaen and co-workers; McFie and coworkers)\nthat the right-hemisphere dominance for certain types of perception\nwas more generally accepted. The investigation of patients who underwent a\ncommissurotomy has contributed to our present knowledge of hemispheric\nasymmetry (Sperry and co-workers).\nSeveral types of spatial disorientation can be distinguished clinically: (a)\ndefective localization of stimuli in external space, (b) defective short-term\nmemory for spatial location, (c) defective route finding, (d) reading and\ncounting disabilities, (e) defective topographical memory, (f) visualconstructive\ndisabilities, and (g) simultaneous agnosia.\nIn older articles these disabilities were attributed to bilateral temporoparieto-\noccipitallesions. But spatial disorientation has also been described in\npatients with unilateral posterior lesions on either side and even in frontal\nlobe disease. Later more comprehensive studies were done, because analysis\nof single cases is susceptible to several sources of error. In many of these\nstudies it was concluded that the right posterior region plays an important\nrole in subserving visual and tactile localization (Hannay, Varney and\nBenton; De Renzi). Yet, some authors only stressed the relevance of the\nantero-posterior dimension but not the hemispheric asymmetry (Semmes et\na!.; Butters and Barton). The differences between these studies were probably\ntask-dependent. Most of the tests for assessing spatial abilities were derived\nfrom intelligence tests or were designed to examine other well-known clinical\ndefects.\nIll
Author: Johannes David Meerwaldt
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
OpenAlex ID: W35510525