Lack of anticipatory gaze-orienting responses in patients with right brain damage

To study eye movements during cervical proprioceptive stimulation by passive body rotation in darkness, with the head held stationary, in patients with right brain damage and hemineglect.

At very low frequency, this stimulation is reported to produce an illusion of head turning in space and eye deviations directed opposite to trunk rotation (in the direction of the illusory head rotation).

Ten normal subjects and seven patients with unilateral cerebral lesions (five right brain-damaged patients with mild to moderate visuospatial neglect, two left brain-damaged patients without neglect) were included in the study. Subjects were seated on a rotating chair. Stimuli consisted of slow sinusoidal passive trunk rotations (+/-30 degrees, 0.01 Hz) while the head was fixed in space.

Eye movements directed opposite to trunk rotation were typical for normal subjects and for left brain-damaged patients. In contrast, all right brain-damaged patients showed either eye movements in the direction of trunk rotation or no eye deviations at all.

This result could characterize a lack of anticipatory coordinating gaze behavior in patients with right brain damage.