Giuseppe Vallar - Böcker

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.The Cognitive and Neural Bases of Spatial Neglect provides an overview of this wide-ranging field of scientific endeavour, providing a cohesive synthesis of the most recent observations and results. As well as being a fascinating clinical phenomenon, the study of spatial neglect helps us to understand normal mechanisms of directing and maintaining spatial attention and is relevant to the contemporary search for the cerebral correlates of conscious experience, voluntary action and the nature of personal identity itself.The book is divided into seven sections covering the anatomical and neurophysiological bases of the disorder, frameworks of neglect, perceptual and motor factors, the relation to attention, the cognitive processes involved, and strategies for rehabilitation.Chapters have been written by a team of the leading international experts in this field.This will be essential reading for neuropsychologists, neurologists, neurophysiologists, cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists.

This work summarizes the empirical and theoretical work on impairments of short-term memory (often caused by damage in the left cerebral hemisphere) and contains chapters from virtually every scientist in Europe and North America working on the problem. The chapters present evidence from both normal and brain-damaged patients. Two neuropsychological issues are discussed in detail: first, the specific patterns of immediate memory impairment resulting from brain damage with reference to both multistore and the interactive-activation theoretical frameworks. Also considered is the relation between verbal STM and sentence comprehension disorders in patients with a defective immediate auditory memory: an area of major controversy in more recent years.

This work summarizes the empirical and theoretical work on impairments of short-term memory (often caused by damage in the left cerebral hemisphere) and contains chapters from virtually every scientist in Europe and North America working on the problem. The chapters present evidence from both normal and brain-damaged patients. Two neuropsychological issues are discussed in detail: first, the specific patterns of immediate memory impairment resulting from brain damage with reference to both multistore and the interactive-activation theoretical frameworks. Also considered is the relation between verbal STM and sentence comprehension disorders in patients with a defective immediate auditory memory: an area of major controversy in more recent years.

Cognitive deficits are a common consequence of neurological disease, and there is evidence that specific cognitive training may be effective in rehabilitation. Behavioural dysfunction following neurological disease constitutes one of the major causes of disability worldwide, exerts a major impact on the daily life of affected individuals, and their families, also with a financial burden both for patients, and the society in general. Therefore, the adequate treatment of cognitive dysfunction is a much relevant issue, with social and economical implications, over and above the neuropsychological problem per se.Several investigations emphasise the fact that interacting with neural activity, by means of cortical stimulation, can affect cognitive performance. A number of studies have reported enhanced performance in specific cognitive tasks in patients with several types of neurological disease, after receiving Non Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) to specific cortical areas, namely: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and transcranial Electrical Stimulation. In general, the evidence highlights the possibility of inducing changes in cortical excitability, which, in turn, may lead to a plastic reorganization of dysfunctional networks, responsible for the impaired cognitive functions. Despite these advances, a number of important questions remain open, regarding the use of stimulation techniques in cognitive rehabilitation. This special issue puts together international leading experts in the field, to review and discuss recent advances as to whether NIBS techniques alone, or combined with behavioural cognitive rehabilitation, can lead to performance enhancements, and why. The issue is timely and promises to have a huge impact across many domains of clinical and basic neuroscience.

Cognitive deficits are a common consequence of neurological disease, and there is evidence that specific cognitive training may be effective in rehabilitation. Behavioural dysfunction following neurological disease constitutes one of the major causes of disability worldwide, exerts a major impact on the daily life of affected individuals, and their families, also with a financial burden both for patients, and the society in general. Therefore, the adequate treatment of cognitive dysfunction is a much relevant issue, with social and economical implications, over and above the neuropsychological problem per se.Several investigations emphasise the fact that interacting with neural activity, by means of cortical stimulation, can affect cognitive performance. A number of studies have reported enhanced performance in specific cognitive tasks in patients with several types of neurological disease, after receiving Non Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) to specific cortical areas, namely: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and transcranial Electrical Stimulation. In general, the evidence highlights the possibility of inducing changes in cortical excitability, which, in turn, may lead to a plastic reorganization of dysfunctional networks, responsible for the impaired cognitive functions. Despite these advances, a number of important questions remain open, regarding the use of stimulation techniques in cognitive rehabilitation. This special issue puts together international leading experts in the field, to review and discuss recent advances as to whether NIBS techniques alone, or combined with behavioural cognitive rehabilitation, can lead to performance enhancements, and why. The issue is timely and promises to have a huge impact across many domains of clinical and basic neuroscience.