A lesion analysis of visual orienting performance in children with cerebral vascular injury

Anterior brain insults during development have been shown to result in visual orienting deficits; however, the type of orienting deficit has varied across studies. Performance on an orienting task was examined in relation to the location and volume of injury on magnetic resonance exams in 15 children with cerebral infarction and 32 control children. Contralateral lesions including the parietal lobe were associated with larger validity effects, suggesting difficulties disengaging attention. A similar trend was found for the middle-frontal gyrus. Basal ganglia injury contralateral to a given hemifield was associated with less facilitation of attention. Lesion volume in each hemisphere did not show a significant relation with contralateral validity effects. The data suggest that variability in the type of visual orienting deficits shown in prior studies of children with anterior brain insults may be related in part to the specific location of lesions within the frontal lobe.