Re-assessing acalculia: Distinguishing spatial and purely arithmetical deficits in right-hemisphere damaged patients
| Autor: | Francesca Burgio, Carlo Semenza, Silvia Benavides-Varela, Francesca Meneghello, Giuseppe Rolma, D. Piva, Laura Passarini |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male media_common.quotation_subject Acalculia Right hemisphere Cognitive Neuroscience Dyscalculia Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Neuropsychological Tests Cognitive neuroscience Affect (psychology) Functional Laterality 050105 experimental psychology Neglect Perceptual Disorders 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Arithmetical errors medicine Spatial errors Humans Arithmetic function 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Problem Solving Aged media_common Aged 80 and over Calculation Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology 05 social sciences Cognition Middle Aged Stepwise regression Magnetic Resonance Imaging Stroke Comprehension Cross-Sectional Studies Space Perception Female medicine.symptom Psychology Mathematics 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Cognitive psychology |
| Popis: | Arithmetical deficits in right-hemisphere damaged patients have been traditionally considered secondary to visuo-spatial impairments, although the exact relationship between the two deficits has rarely been assessed. The present study implemented a voxelwise lesion analysis among 30 right-hemisphere damaged patients and a controlled, matched-sample, cross-sectional analysis with 35 cognitively normal controls regressing three composite cognitive measures on standardized numerical measures. The results showed that patients and controls significantly differ in Number comprehension, Transcoding, and Written operations, particularly subtractions and multiplications. The percentage of patients performing below the cutoffs ranged between 27% and 47% across these tasks. Spatial errors were associated with extensive lesions in fronto-temporo-parietal regions -which frequently lead to neglect- whereas pure arithmetical errors appeared related to more confined lesions in the right angular gyrus and its proximity. Stepwise regression models consistently revealed that spatial errors were primarily predicted by composite measures of visuo-spatial attention/neglect and representational abilities. Conversely, specific errors of arithmetic nature linked to representational abilities only. Crucially, the proportion of arithmetical errors (ranging from 65% to 100% across tasks) was higher than that of spatial ones. These findings thus suggest that unilateral right hemisphere lesions can directly affect core numerical/arithmetical processes, and that right-hemisphere acalculia is not only ascribable to visuo-spatial deficits as traditionally thought. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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