TACTILE EXPLORATION OF PERIPERSONAL SPACE IN PATIENTS WITH NEGLECT

RECENT studies investigated the pattern of visual exploration along th e horizontal axis in patients with neglect. They found a deviated dist ribution of activity with the centre shifted -15 degrees to the right of the body's mid-sagittal plane. The present study reports comparable observations concerning tactile exploration of space in neglect. We f ound the whole distribution of patients' exploratory hand movements sh ifted towards the right. The median activity lay 17.7 cm right of the body's mid-sagittal plane. The frequency of tactile exploration decrea sed towards the periphery of peripersonal space on the right and the l eft side. The findings are in clear contrast to the predictions of the attentional gradient model of neglect. They rather favour a deviation of the whole frame for exploratory behaviour towards a new equilibriu m on the right. The character of this frame appears to be supramodal i n that it determines the distribution of exploratory movements irrespe ctive of whether the subject explores the surround visually or tactual ly. Neuro Report 9: 2273-2277 (C) 1998 Rapid Science Ltd.