Chapter 35 - Disorders of higher cortical function

Abstract

A brief overview of the most important cognitive alterations as a consequence of focal brain damage is presented. The discipline that studies the relationship between brain damage and higher cognitive functions is called neuropsychology and is mainly based on correlations between anatomy and function. Leaving aside the importance of the clinical impact that neuropsychology has on patients' treatment, its main experimental aim is to draw inferences from the pathological conditions to normal functions, on the assumption that if the lesion to a particular brain area or circuit has provoked a specific deficit, then that part of the brain is involved in or is necessary for sustaining the normal function. The main classical neuropsychological syndromes related to perceptual, spatial, linguistic, motor, and memory domains will be discussed, with a final part on syndromes in which conscious awareness is specifically altered.