Abstract
Motor Neglect and Future Directions for Research
Highlights
We present an opinion on “motor neglect,” one of the several scotomas in neglect research (Kerkhoff and Schenk, 2012)
“Motor neglect,” a term originally coined by Laplane and Degos (1983), refers to the underutilization of the affected limb compared to the healthy one following brain damage despite normal muscle strength, reflexes, and sensation
Von Giesen et al (1994), using positron emission tomography (PET) with four patients with motor neglect, demonstrated that while primary areas underlying the motor output system were unimpaired, there was poor glucose uptake in premotor, prefrontal, parietal, and cingulate cortex areas, as well as the thalamus. This substantiates the clinical manifestation of normal muscle strength, reflexes, and sensation in motor neglect. von Giesen et al hypothesized that the intact motor cortical output system is deprived of sensory information and the voluntary drive needed for movement execution
Summary
We present an opinion on “motor neglect,” one of the several scotomas in neglect research (Kerkhoff and Schenk, 2012). Patients with motor neglect typically underuse the contralesional side (even where this involves inconvenience); have little or no involvement of the contralesional limb in bimanual tasks (e.g., clapping, opening a bottle); have little or no involvement of the contralesional limb when automatically gesturing; they have relatively normal movement when encouraged to use the contralesional limb (Laplane and Degos, 1983; Punt and Riddoch, 2006; Garbarini et al, 2012a,b).
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