Behavioural and functional changes in neglect after multisensory stimulation

To assess whether bimodal audio-visual stimulation leads to improvement in patients with neglect and in patients with neglect associated with hemianopia.

Protocol

The patient sits in front of the device. While maintaining the fixation point at the center, they must direct their gaze toward the presented stimuli and signal the detection of the visual stimulus by pressing a button. Unimodal visual stimuli, unimodal auditory stimuli, and bimodal stimuli (temporally coincident audio+visual) are presented. 4 hours of treatment per day for 2 weeks with sessions of 48 stimuli each.

Results

The results of the study demonstrate the relevance of spared subcortical circuits for the recovery of visual functions after brain lesions and that cross-modal training has strengthened the brain's innate ability to perceive multisensory events.

The study suggests that intensive and prolonged audio-visual multisensory stimulation leads to long-term improvements in visual exploration and neglect symptoms in the hemisphere with neglect, both in patients with neglect alone and in those with neglect associated with hemianopia.