BRAIN-BEHAVIOR CORRELATIONS IN HEMISPATIAL NEGLECT USING CT AND SPECT- THE SUNNYBROOK STROKE STUDY

Objective: Structural and functional lesion localization in patients w ith hemispatial neglect. Design: Location and severity of brain damage on CT and SPECT correlated with neglect performance as assessed with a battery of drawings, line bisection, and line and shape cancellation subtests, Patients: Participants included 120 consecutive stroke pati ents with a single right-hemisphere-damaged lesion on CT who were admi tted to the Acute Stroke Care Unit at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre , Of these, 88 also had a SPECT, Results: On CT, 82 patients with negl ect (compared with 38 without neglect) had more extensive damage in th e parietal and sensorimotor cortex and white matter fiber bundles, inc luding the posterior-superior longitudinal and inferior-frontal fascic uli (p < 0.05), Parietal and anterior cingulate damage best predicted neglect score using the CT data (p < 0.05), and regional blood flow in the parietal cortex best predicted neglect score using the SPECT data (p < 0.05) after controlling for the influence of age and lesion size on multiple linear regression. Conclusions: Damage in the parietal an d anterior cingulate cortex and posterior white matter fiber bundles c orrelated with hemispatial neglect. Combining structural-and functiona l-imaging techniques with neurobehavioral analysis can elucidate brain -behavior relationships.