The influence of clinical characteristics on prism adaptation training in visuospatial neglect: A post-hoc analysis...

Previous studies indicate that the effect of prism adaptation training (PAT) on unilateral neglect may depend on clinical characteristics. In this explorative work, we re-analyzed data from a previously conducted randomized controlled trial (N = 23) to investigate whether age, etiology, severity of motor impairments, and visual field deficits affect the efficacy of PAT. Additionally, we reviewed PAT studies that reported lesion maps and distinguished responders from non-responders. We transferred these maps into a common standard brain and added data from 12 patients from our study. We found patients suffering from subarachnoid bleeding appeared to show stronger functional recovery than those with intracranial hemorrhage or cortical infarction. Furthermore, patients with visual field deficits and those with more severe contralateral motor impairments had larger after-effect sizes but did not differ in treatment effects. In addition, patients with parietal lesions showed reduced recovery, whereas patients with lesions in the basal ganglia recovered better. We conclude that PAT (in its current form) is effective when fronto-subcortical areas are involved but it may not be the best choice when parietal regions are affected. Overall, the present work adds to the understanding on the effects of clinical characteristics on PAT.