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Anosognosia for obvious visual field defects in stroke patients

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Abstract

Patients with anosognosia for visual field defect (AVFD) fail to recognize consciously their visual field defect. There is still unclarity whether specific neural correlates are associated with AVFD. We studied AVFD in 54 patients with acute stroke and a visual field defect. Nineteen percent of this unselected sample showed AVFD. By using modern voxelwise lesion-behaviour mapping techniques we found an association between AVFD and parts of the lingual gyrus, the cuneus as well as the posterior cingulate and corpus callosum. Damage to these regions appears to induce unawareness of visual field defects and thus may play a significant role for conscious visual perception.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (KA 1258/10-1, HA 5839/3-1, and BA 4097/1-1) and the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) (IFB) to MD.

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, University of Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131, Mainz, Germany

    Bernhard Baier, Christian Geber & Marianne Dieterich

  2. Institute of Neuroradiology, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Wiebke Müller-Forell

  3. Department of Neurology and German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany

    Notger Müller

  4. Department of Neurology and IFB-LMU, Ludwig-Maximillians-University, Munich, Germany

    Bernhard Baier & Marianne Dieterich

  5. Division of Neuropsychology, Center of Neurology, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Hans-Otto Karnath

  6. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    Hans-Otto Karnath

Authors
  1. Bernhard Baier
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  2. Christian Geber
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  3. Wiebke Müller-Forell
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  4. Notger Müller
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  5. Marianne Dieterich
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  6. Hans-Otto Karnath
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bernhard Baier.

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Baier, B., Geber, C., Müller-Forell, W. et al. Anosognosia for obvious visual field defects in stroke patients. Brain Struct Funct 220, 1855–1860 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0753-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0753-5

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