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The way to “left” Piazza del Popolo: damage to white matter tracts in representational neglect for places

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Abstract

The ability of seeing with the mind’s eye, the visual mental imagery, is peculiarly compromised in patients with representational neglect. Representational neglect affects the processing of the left side of a mental image and may selectively concern the ability to imagine places and/or objects. Right-brain damaged patients with representational neglect for places (RN+) lose the ability to imagine themselves within a familiar place and fail in transforming an egocentric representation of the environment into an allocentric one and vice-versa. A peak region located at the posterior junction between the parietal and temporal lobes has emerged as pivotal in determining representational neglect for places. Here we aimed at verifying whether white matter disconnections affecting parietal lobe, by preventing the integration of egocentric information with the allocentric one, play a role in representational neglect for places. A track-wise statistical analysis on 58 right brain damaged patients, with and without extrapersonal perceptual neglect and/or representational neglect for places, suggests that the disconnection of the superior longitudinal fasciculus and that of the posterior arcuate segment, together with the disconnection of a fronto-parietal u-shaped tract, may be crucial in determining the representational neglect for places. These results suggest that representational neglect for places emerges from a complex pattern of lesion location and disconnection that involves parietal, temporal and frontal lobes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, “Sapienza” University of Rome, via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Maddalena Boccia, Antonella Di Vita & Cecilia Guariglia

  2. Cognitive and Motor Rehabilitation Unit, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Maddalena Boccia, Antonella Di Vita, Liana Palermo, Laura Piccardi & Cecilia Guariglia

  3. Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy

    Liana Palermo

  4. Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, and Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies - ITAB, G. D’Annunzio University, Chieti, Italy

    Giorgia Committeri

  5. Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, L’Aquila University, L’aquila, Italy

    Laura Piccardi

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  1. Maddalena Boccia
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  2. Antonella Di Vita
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  3. Liana Palermo
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  4. Giorgia Committeri
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  5. Laura Piccardi
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  6. Cecilia Guariglia
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Correspondence to Maddalena Boccia.

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MB declares that she has no conflict of interest. ADV declares that she has no conflict of interest. LPa declares that she has no conflict of interest. LPi declares that she has no conflict of interest. GC declares that she has no conflict of interest. CG declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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List of the tracts disconnected in at least 1 patient has been reported in Supplementary online information.

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Boccia, M., Di Vita, A., Palermo, L. et al. The way to “left” Piazza del Popolo: damage to white matter tracts in representational neglect for places. Brain Imaging and Behavior 12, 1720–1729 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-018-9839-7

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