Neural Circuits for Spatial Attention and Unilateral Neglect
Advances in psychologyPublished 1 January 1987
Giacomo Rizzolatti, Rosolino Camarda
Citations171
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TL;DR
This article reviews three theories that have been advanced to explain this neurological syndrome, discusses their limitations, and advances an alternative hypothesis based on a model of spatial attention.
Abstract
What is the relationship between attention and unilateral neglect? In this article we review three theories that have been advanced to explain this neurological syndrome, discuss their limitations, and advance an alternative hypothesis. The theories are: the hemispheric hypoarousal hypothesis (Heilman & Watson, 1977), the hypothesis of an attentional master center (see De Renzi, 1982) and the hypothesis of a cortical circuit for directing attention (Mesulam, 1981). The analysis of these theories shows that none of them is able to accomodate three basic findings: a) the multiplicity of brain centers whose lesion produces neglect; b) the congruence between attentional and motor deficits after lesion of these centers; c) the anatomical independence of centers whose damage causes neglect. A model of spatial attention is proposed based on a series of circuits largely independent one from another and formed by centers which program motor plans in a spatial framework. This conception is radically different from that of a single attentional center because it conceives spatial attention not as a supraordinate function controlling the activity of the brain as a whole, but as a property intrinsically linked to the premotor activity and distributed among various cerebral centers. In other words, spatial attention is a vertical modular function present in several independent circuits.
Keywords
Neuroscience
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