On the right (and left) track: Twenty years of progress in studying hemispatial neglect

In the last 20 years, several important developments have markedly expanded our understanding of the hemispatial neglect syndrome and, more broadly, of the brain's representation of objects, space, and action. This review follows seven "threads" of scientific development to evaluate some of the changes in our thinking about the mechanisms of neglect, its key characteristics, the spatial frames of reference affected, the psychophysical properties of neglect phenomena, the relationship of neglect in various sensory modalities, the role of deficits in arousal and general attention, and the critical neuroanatomic substrates of the disorder. The progress reviewed illustrates that the cognitive neuropsychology approach to the study of neglect complements insights gleaned from neurophysiological studies in the monkey, functional neuroimaging studies of attention and perception, and other investigative techniques, and thus serves as fertile ground for a convergence approach to cognitive neuroscience.