A new kind of spatial inattention associated with chronic limb pain?

Emily Reid, Sarah B. Wallwork, Daniel Harvie, K. Jane Chalmers, Alberto Gallace, Charles Spence, G. Lorimer Moseley

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Pathological limb pain patients show decreased attention to some stimuli on the painful limb and increased attention to others, a paradox that has dogged the field for over a decade. We hypothesized that pathological pain involves a spatial inattention confined to bodily representations. Patients showed inattention to the painful side for visual processing of body parts but not letters, tactile processing but not auditory, and body‐part bisection tasks but not line bisection tasks. We propose the new term “somatospatial inattention” to describe bodily‐specific spatial inattention associated with pathological limb pain.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)701-704
Number of pages4
JournalAnnals of Neurology
Volume79
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • arm
  • brain damage
  • chronic pain
  • leg
  • space perception

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