Response Inhibition in Hemispatial Neglect

Szymanek, L., Butler, S.H., Rossit, S., Olk, B. and Harvey, M. (2009) Response Inhibition in Hemispatial Neglect. In: European Conference on Visual Perception, Regensburg, Germany, 24-28 Aug 2009, (Unpublished)

Abstract

Patients with hemispatial neglect exhibit visuospatial impairments in the contralesional hemispace, failing to respond to items presented in their left space. Moreover, eye-movements into left space are abnormal with fewer, hypometric fixations and increased leftward latencies. Surprisingly we have recently found that, in an anti-saccade task (where a saccade away from a stimulus is required), neglect patient failed to suppress incorrect pro-saccades to both right and leftwardly presented targets (Rossit et al, 2009). What we could not establish was whether these bilateral impairments were due to a failure to locate the visual stimulus and reverse its location to specify the goal for the anti-saccade, or whether the patients suffered from an inability to suppress the pre-potent response. We therefore asked neglect patients to either perform pro-saccades (go) towards right and leftwardly presented stimuli or to inhibit their response and maintain central fixation (no-go). The percentage of go compared to no-go trials was varied systematically. We found that neglect patients showed no problems suppressing leftward saccades yet performed worse than control groups in suppressing rightward saccades over all conditions. This suggests that the, previously reported, involuntary leftward pro-saccade errors were not due to inhibition failure but that the rightward errors were.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Unpublished
• Refereed: No
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Harvey, Professor Monika and Rossit, Miss Stephanie and Szymanek, Dr Larissa
• Authors: Szymanek, L., Butler, S.H., Rossit, S., Olk, B., and Harvey, M.
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology; College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Life Sciences

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