Giuseppe Vallar Knihy

For more than a century, the cerebral cortex has been regarded as the site of cognitive activities such as language, thought, and spatial awareness. In the past 20 years, however, an increasing amount of evidence has accumulated to suggest that subcortical structures such as the thalamus and the basal ganglia may participate in specific aspects of mental activity. This is the first book to focus entirely on this issue. The collaboration of an international group of researchers, this volume clearly describes the clinical patterns of neuropsychological disorders found in patients with subcortical lesions, and accurately reports the results of animal research. New imaging techniques allow the disorders to be correlated with the size and site of the lesion. This comprehensive work discusses the pattern that emerges from these findings, which is essentially that cognitive functions are mediated by complex neural circuits involving both cortical and subcortical structures.

Spatial neglect is a disorder of space-related behaviour. It is characterized by failure to explore the side of space contralateral to a brain lesion, or to react or respond to stimuli or subjects located on this side. Research on spatial neglect and related disorders has developed rapidly in recent years. These advances have been made as a result of neuropsychological studies of patients with brain damage, behavioural studies of animal models, as well as through functional neurophysiological experiments and functional neuroimaging.