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  • Spatial neglect encompasses...
    Lafitte, Rémi; Jeager, Marie; Piscicelli, Céline; Dai, Shenhao; Lemaire, Camille; Chrispin, Anne; Davoine, Patrice; Dupierrix, Eve; Pérennou, Dominic

    Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, February 2023, 2023-02-00, 20230201, 2023-02, Volume: 1520, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    Spatial neglect after right hemisphere stroke (RHS) was recently found to encompass lateropulsion, a deficit in body orientation with respect to gravity caused by altered brain processing of graviception. By analogy, we hypothesized that spatial neglect after RHS might encompass an altered representation of verticality. We also assumed a strong relation between body neglect and impaired postural vertical, both referring to the body. To tackle these issues, we performed contingency and correlation analyses between two domains of spatial neglect (body, extra‐body) and two modalities of verticality perception (postural, visual) in 77 individuals (median age = 67) with a first‐ever subacute RHS (1–3 months). All individuals with a transmodal (postural and visual) tilt in verticality perception (n = 26) had spatial neglect, but the reverse was not found. Correlation and multivariate analyses revealed that spatial neglect (and notably body neglect) was associated more with postural than visual vertical tilts. These findings indicate that after RHS, an impaired verticality representation results from a kind of graviceptive neglect, bearing first on somaesthetic graviception and second on vestibular graviception. They also suggest that the human brain uses not only a mosaic of 2D representations but also 3D maps involving a transmodal representation of verticality. Spatial neglect after right hemisphere stroke (RHS) results in lateropulsion and might include altered representation of verticality. We assumed a relation between body neglect and impaired postural vertical. Spatial neglect was associated with postural and visual vertical tilts. RHS appears to impair verticality representation resulting from graviceptive neglect. The human brain seems to use a mosaic of 2D representations and 3D maps for transmodal representation of verticality.