Hemispatial neglect is a strange condition in which brain damage, despite normal vision, results in complete neglect of the left side of one’s world.
The following could happen in a person suffering from hemispatial neglect:
- He or she will walk over to the right of another person and proceed to enjoy a perfectly normal interaction, because otherwise on the left, they don’t exist.
- A man may only shave the right half of his face and a woman may only apply make-up to the right hand side.
- Someone asked to draw a clock may only write the numbers 12 through 6, or if asked to draw a star, will only put points on the right side.
- He or she will often run into walls or door frames on their left as its existence was not processed by the brain.
Hemispatial neglect most commonly occurs after injury, such as stroke, to the right parietal lobe (green) – like in Barley the dog’s case (below).
It’s not as common with left parietal lobe damage because it’s thought that the right hemisphere of the brain is generally more specialized for spatial memory, while the left side is better tuned for language.
Damage to the right side of the brain reduces the amount of neural activity that crosses over to the left via the large fibre tract in the middle, called the corpus collosum, connecting the two halves.
Read more HERE on another concept in chiropractic neurology called hemisphericity.