Might i suggest purchasing "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S Ramachandran -
this subject is covered in detail in this entertaining book. - it`s paper
back and is written for the lay-reader.
The deficits occuring from a stroke are largley dependent on the specific
area affected. One of the more unusual aspects of some right hemispheric
strokes is that of "left-hemi neglect" where the person loses the concept of
"leftness" - they may deny that their left arm or leg is theirs ("it's my
brothers") in a manner called "confabulation", if asked to draw a clock
face, the will only draw the right side, they may ignore anything on the
left side of their dinner plate, and only shave the right side of their
face, etc.
If the stroke has affected the visual cortex (either/both sides), depending
on which areas are affected, they may total lose vision (the area that
processes vision is affected, so that they are effectively blind, even
though the eyes are unaffected) or if a more specific area is affected, they
may lose colour, depth, movement perception. If some areas are lost but not
others, they may have "blind sight" where conscious vision is lost, but they
still respond to some visual stimuli, even though the person cannot say why.
Do a search on google for "visual cortex" - a picture of the different
visual areas will help explain this, since they are located over a broad
area.
Hyperemotionalism is another affect of right hemispheric infarct, but is an
area that i have not been able to find any written literature on (if anyone
has a reference, could they possibly send it to me please) - the person
might be happy one moment, and in floods of tears the next. The person
might display a wide ranging array of emotional behaviours, but the patients
i have seen report that that they don`t "feel" those emotions, nor know
where they come from, they "do" the emotions with actually feeling or
consciously generating them.
Contrary to this, is that of the classic blissfully happy, semi-paralysed
right sided stroke patient. Despite the devastion of the stroke upon their
daily functioning, these patients are cheerful, often deny that anything is
wrong ("confabulation") and remarkably 'laid back'.
It sounds like you are writing as assignment, I can give you a list of URL's
of articles already written on this subject, but as i am posting this from
work, i don`t have the URL's with me - and from my home i cannot access this
newsgroup (i only get to see one posting in about 5) - email me on the
return address of this posting with "right hemispheric infarct" of something
in the header, and i can supply these in due course.
regards,
Andrew Austin.
Mark D. Morin <mdmpsyd at PETERHOOD69.earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3ACD09E5.9C6F04C0 at earthlink.net...
> evelyn idusuyi wrote:
> >
> > i was wondering if the neur-sci could help me with "why
> > people who has right hemisphere stroke produce different
> > deficits" meaning why a lesion on the right hemisphere of
> > the brain could result in non verbal material, impairment
> > in face recognition and most of all shows left hemianopia
> > (loss of visuo-spatial neglect...
>> it's probably because it's the right half of the brain that
> is responsible for those functions. A stroke in the right
> hemisphere will damage portions of the right hemisphere.
> depending where the damage is, there will be different
> effects.
>> --
> ====================================================
> "And Helena got six inches during the night
> ... Helena, Montana, that is!"
>> - weatherperson on KHAR-TV, Alaska, during a report
> describing a snowfall in the Northwest
>>>http://members.mint.net/mdmpsyd> for e-mail replies, remove the obvious