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Visual agnosia and posterior cerebral artery infarcts: an anatomical-clinical study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: To evaluate systematically the cognitive deficits following posterior cerebral artery (PCA) strokes, especially agnosic visual disorders, and to study anatomical-clinical correlations. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We investigated 31 patients at the chronic stage (mean duration of 29.1 months post infarct) with standardized cognitive tests. New experimental tests were used to assess visual impairments for words, faces, houses, and objects. Forty-one healthy subjects participated as controls. Brain lesions were normalized, combined, and related to occipitotemporal areas responsive to specific visual categories, including words (VWFA), faces (FFA and OFA), houses (PPA) and common objects (LOC). Lesions were located in the left hemisphere in 15 patients, in the right in 13, and bilaterally in 3. Visual field defects were found in 23 patients. Twenty patients had a visual disorder in at least one of the experimental tests (9 with faces, 10 with houses, 7 with phones, 3 with words). Six patients had a deficit just for a single category of stimulus. The regions of maximum overlap of brain lesions associated with a deficit for a given category of stimuli were contiguous to the peaks of the corresponding functional areas as identified in normal subjects. However, the strength of anatomical-clinical correlations was greater for words than for faces or houses, probably due to the stronger lateralization of the VWFA, as compared to the FFA or the PPA. CONCLUSIONS: Agnosic visual disorders following PCA infarcts are more frequent than previously reported. Dedicated batteries of tests, such as those developed here, are required to identify such deficits, which may escape clinical notice. The spatial relationships of lesions and of regions activated in normal subjects predict the nature of the deficits, although individual variability and bilaterally represented systems may blur those correlations.

SUBMITTER: Martinaud O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3262828 | biostudies-other | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Visual agnosia and posterior cerebral artery infarcts: an anatomical-clinical study.

Martinaud Olivier O Pouliquen Dorothée D Gérardin Emmanuel E Loubeyre Maud M Hirsbein David D Hannequin Didier D Cohen Laurent L

PloS one 20120120 1

<h4>Background</h4>To evaluate systematically the cognitive deficits following posterior cerebral artery (PCA) strokes, especially agnosic visual disorders, and to study anatomical-clinical correlations.<h4>Methods and findings</h4>We investigated 31 patients at the chronic stage (mean duration of 29.1 months post infarct) with standardized cognitive tests. New experimental tests were used to assess visual impairments for words, faces, houses, and objects. Forty-one healthy subjects participated ...[more]

PMID: 22276198

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Project description:Abstract Knowledge about the consequences of stroke on high-level vision comes primarily from single case studies of patients selected based on their behavioural profiles, typically patients with specific stroke syndromes like pure alexia or prosopagnosia. There are, however, no systematic, detailed, large-scale evaluations of the more typical clinical behavioural and lesion profiles of impairments in high-level vision after posterior cerebral artery stroke. We present behavioural and lesion data from the Back of the Brain project, to date the largest (N = 64) and most detailed examination of patients with cortical posterior cerebral artery strokes selected based on lesion location. The aim of the current study was to relate behavioural performance with faces, objects and written words to lesion data through two complementary analyses: (i) a multivariate multiple regression analysis to establish the relationships between lesion volume, lesion laterality and the presence of a bilateral lesion with performance and (ii) a voxel-based correlational methodology analysis to establish whether there are distinct or separate regions within the posterior cerebral artery territory that underpin the visual processing of words, faces and objects. Behaviourally, most patients showed more general deficits in high-level vision (n = 22) or no deficits at all (n = 21). Category-selective deficits were rare (n = 6) and were only found for words. Overall, total lesion volume was most strongly related to performance across all three domains. While behavioural impairments in all domains were observed following unilateral left and right as well as bilateral lesions, the regions most strongly related to performance mainly confirmed the pattern reported in more selective cases. For words, these included a left hemisphere cluster extending from the occipital pole along the fusiform and lingual gyri; for objects, bilateral clusters which overlapped with the word cluster in the left occipital lobe. Face performance mainly correlated with a right hemisphere cluster within the white matter, partly overlapping with the object cluster. While the findings provide partial support for the relative laterality of posterior brain regions supporting reading and face processing, the results also suggest that both hemispheres are involved in the visual processing of faces, words and objects. Robotham et al. report performance in face, word and object recognition in patients with posterior stroke recruited based on lesion location (the Back of the Brain project). In this unbiased sample, they find that both general and selective impairments in high-level vision can result from unilateral left or right as well as bilateral lesions. Graphical Abstract Graphical Abstract

Project description:ImportanceCerebral vascular territories are of key clinical importance in patients with stroke, but available maps are highly variable and based on prior studies with small sample sizes.ObjectiveTo update and improve the state of knowledge on the supratentorial vascular supply to the brain by using the natural experiment of large artery infarcts and to map out the variable anatomy of the anterior, middle, and posterior cerebral artery (ACA, MCA, and PCA) territories.Design, setting, and participantsIn this cross-sectional study, digital maps of supratentorial infarcts were generated using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 1160 patients with acute (<1-week) stroke recruited (May 2011 to February 2013) consecutively from 11 Korean stroke centers. All had supratentorial infarction associated with significant stenosis or occlusion of 1 of 3 large supratentorial cerebral arteries but with patent intracranial or extracranial carotid arteries. Data were analyzed between February 2016 and August 2017.Main outcomes and measuresThe 3 vascular territories were mapped individually by affected vessel, generating 3 data sets for which infarct frequency is defined for each voxel in the data set. By mapping these 3 vascular territories collectively, we generated data sets showing the Certainty Index (CI) to reflect the likelihood of a voxel being a member of a specific vascular territory, calculated as either ACA, MCA, or PCA infarct frequency divided by total infarct frequency in that voxel.ResultsOf the 1160 patients (mean [SD] age, 67.0 [13.3] years old), 623 were men (53.7%). When the cutoff CI was set as 90%, the volume of the MCA territory (approximately 54% of the supratentorial parenchymal brain volume) was about 4-fold bigger than the volumes of the ACA and PCA territories (each approximately 13%). Quantitative studies showed that the medial frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, and anterior cingulate were involved mostly in ACA infarcts, whereas the middle frontal gyrus and caudate were involved mostly by MCA infarcts. The PCA infarct territory was smaller and narrower than traditionally shown. Border-zone maps could be defined by using either relative infarct frequencies or CI differences.Conclusions and relevanceWe have generated statistically rigorous maps to delineate territorial border zones and lines. The new topographic brain atlas can be used in clinical care and in research to objectively define the supratentorial arterial territories and their borders.

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Dataset Information

Visual agnosia and posterior cerebral artery infarcts: an anatomical-clinical study.

Publications

Visual agnosia and posterior cerebral artery infarcts: an anatomical-clinical study.

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