The Syndrome of Apractognosia Due to Lesions of the Minor Cerebral Hemisphere

A comparison of two approaches in the treatment of perceptual problems after stroke

“…Language has also been found to be closed related to body scheme (Sanguet et al, 1971;Hecaen et al, 1956). Sanguet et al (1971) suggested that receptive aphasia was related to finger recognition and right !left discrimination deficits.…”

“…However, this study only included young (mean ages 45.8 years for left hemiplegic patients and 47.6 years for right hemiplegia patients) and excluded those with mental impairment or confusion. Hecaen et al (1956) stated that verbal experience was conceived as a point of reference to the outside world. They suggested that if the balance between language and body was upset, the patient loses his/her verbal body image and cannot name or point to the various parts of the body.…”

Representation of Egocentric Space in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

“…Tactile perception It was not until well after the Second World War that it became clear that the only cortical lesions which could render the skin permanently anaesthetic were those affecting the postcentral gyrus (Hecaen, Penfield, Bertrand & Malmo, 1956). The confusion which prevailed before that time shows that little had been learnt from Ferrier's mistake.…”

“…This is highly reminiscent of Ferrier's monkeys whom he incorrectly judged as blind because they would not turn and look at objects of interest. In fact, the threshold of patients' perception of passive touch, texture or roughness, to which their attention has been forcibly drawn, is unaffected by posterior parietal lesions (Hecaen et al 1956). …”

Cutaneous Reflexes in the Avoidance Reaction

“…Since that time, clinical descriptions of the phenomenon have been relatively rare [1,3,4,8,9,14], It is equally remarkable that many publications on the parietal lobe function in man make no mention of it [5,13].…”