Clinical Study Of SPECT Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Imaging In Patients With Subcortical Neglect

ObjectiveTo explore the relationships between the occurrence, severity of subcortical neglect and the region, range or extent of the decrease of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF).Methods and Results30 dextromanual patients who were diagnosed as unilateral subcortical infarction clinically with neglect by a neglect test battery were performed SPECT rCBF imaging. On SPECT imagings, thepatients with subcortical neglect had damages in the frontal cortexmostly, parietal secondly, temporal, occipital cortex, and basal ganglia and thalamus. The patients who had two or more regions damaged showed neglect more easily. The most significant region of neglect was temporal-parictal-occipital junction. The subcortical neglect was mostly correlated with the decrease of cortical rCBF significantly ( x 2=7. 91 p<0.005). The correlation coefficients between rCBF and the decrease percentage of rCBF and the severity of neglect were - 0. 44(t=-l. 93, p>0. 05) and 0. 31 ( t=l. 45, P>0. 05) .respectively .The correlation coefficients between the range, number of foci, the flow deficit size and the severity of neglect were 0.74 (t=4.35,P<0.01) and 0.72 ( t=4. 12,P<0.01) , respectively.ConclusionsThe subcortical neglect mostly correlates with the decrease of cortical rCBF significantly. The severity of neglect correlates withrCBF and the decrease percentage of rCBF insignificantly, while it correlates with the range and the number of foci significantly. Subcortical neglect is the damage of multiple sites, combine damage of which result in more severe neglect.