Dissociated neglect behavior following sequential strokes in the right hemisphere

Abstract

A 42‐year‐old woman suffered two focal right hemisphere strokes, sequentially damaging different components of a proposed cerebral network for the spatial distribution of attention. Her first stroke was centered in the right frontal lobe and resulted in left hemispatial neglect but only for tasks that emphasize exploratory‐motor components of directed attention. A second stroke occurred 20 days later in the parietal lobe and led to the emergence of perceptual‐sensory aspects of neglect. This case strongly supports the existence of a distributed anatomic‐functional network subserving directed attention.