The brain preserves its capacity to integrate information from different senses in many pathological conditions, including stroke. Multisensory integration mechanisms, which may be spared by brain damage, provide a tool for setting up rehabilitation programs of poststroke sensory and cognitive disorders. Indeed, proper multisensory stimulation can ameliorate some unisensory perceptual and spatial impairments of brain-damaged patients. In the case of postchiasmatic visual field defects, intensive audiovisual stimulation of the blind hemifield allows the development of compensatory eye movements, in turn reducing vision-related functional disability in daily living. This approach is effective in both adult stroke patients and in children with cerebral palsy. In the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect, many available treatments are intrinsically multisensory, because they primarily act through a crossmodal reinforcement of spatial representations. This is the case of adaptation to optical prisms displacing the visual scene, a widely used method that affects sensorimotor neuroplasticity. In patients with spatial neglect, prism adaptation induces a remapping of spatial coordinates, enabling the reconstruction of a stable representation of space across different sensory modalities. Other promising therapeutic strategies are offered by multisensory illusions, which can be used for restoring disarranged spatial and body representations, thereby improving the resulting deficits.
Bolognini, N., Vallar, G. (2020). Hemianopia, spatial neglect, and their multisensory rehabilitation. In K. Sathian, V.S. Ramachandran (a cura di), Multisensory Perception. From Laboratory to Clinic. Chapter 19 (pp. 423-447). Elsevier [10.1016/B978-0-12-812492-5.00019-X].
Hemianopia, spatial neglect, and their multisensory rehabilitation
Bolognini, Nadia
Primo
;Vallar, Giuseppe
Ultimo
2020
Abstract
The brain preserves its capacity to integrate information from different senses in many pathological conditions, including stroke. Multisensory integration mechanisms, which may be spared by brain damage, provide a tool for setting up rehabilitation programs of poststroke sensory and cognitive disorders. Indeed, proper multisensory stimulation can ameliorate some unisensory perceptual and spatial impairments of brain-damaged patients. In the case of postchiasmatic visual field defects, intensive audiovisual stimulation of the blind hemifield allows the development of compensatory eye movements, in turn reducing vision-related functional disability in daily living. This approach is effective in both adult stroke patients and in children with cerebral palsy. In the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect, many available treatments are intrinsically multisensory, because they primarily act through a crossmodal reinforcement of spatial representations. This is the case of adaptation to optical prisms displacing the visual scene, a widely used method that affects sensorimotor neuroplasticity. In patients with spatial neglect, prism adaptation induces a remapping of spatial coordinates, enabling the reconstruction of a stable representation of space across different sensory modalities. Other promising therapeutic strategies are offered by multisensory illusions, which can be used for restoring disarranged spatial and body representations, thereby improving the resulting deficits.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.