Behavioural effects of frontal-lobe lesions in man

doi:10.1016/S0166-2236(84)80143-5

Trends in Neurosciences

Volume 7, Issue 11, November 1984, Pages 403-407

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-2236(84)80143-5 Get rights and content

The study of patients with excisions from the frontal lobes has revealed specific cognitive deficits that appear against a background of normal functioning on a variety of perceptual and memory tasks, as well as on conventional intelligence tests. These deficits include a reduced output on fluency tasks, faulty regulation of behaviour of external cues, and impaired organization and monitoring of material to be remembered, and of the subject's own responses. Differential effects related to the side of the lesion are less consistently observed after frontal-than after temporal-lobe excisions. Such effects, when they do occur, may depend as much on the demands of the task as on the nature of the test material.

Reading list (44)

ChavisD.A. et al.
Brain Res.
(1976)
NautaW.J.H.
J. Psychiatr. Res.
(1971)
MatsumuraM. et al.
Neurosci. Lett.
(1979)
MuakkassaK.F. et al.
Brain Res.
(1979)
ShalliceT. et al.
Cortex
(1978)
BentonA.L.
Neuropsychologia
(1968)
PerretE.
Neuropsychologia
(1974)
Jones-GotmanM. et al.
Neuropsychologia
(1977)
YntemaD.B. et al.
J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav.
(1963)
PetridesM. et al.
Neuropsychologia
(1982)

GadeA.

Surg. Neurol.

(1982)

DreweE.A.

Cortex

(1974)

CiceroneK.D. et al.

Neuropsychologia

(1983)

CorkinS.

Neuropsychologia

(1965)

CanavanA.G.M.

Neuropsychologia

(1983)

GoldmanP.S. et al.

Exp. Neurol.

(1970)

PetridesM.

Behav. Brain Res.

(1982)

HalsbandU. et al.

Brain Res.

(1982)

WarringtonE.K. et al.

Neuropsychologia

(1982)

JonesE.G. et al.

Brain

(1970)

KempJ.M. et al.

Brain

(1970)

GoldmanP.S. et al.

J. Comp. Neurol.

(1977)

Cited by (366)

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia: Trying to answer unanswered research questions
2023, Psychiatry Research
My research has focused on unmet needs in caring for people with schizophrenia. In particular, I focused on negative symptoms, a complex psychopathological dimension of the disorder, with a significant impact on the disease outcome, and not effectively addressed by existing treatments.
In the present commentary, I summarize the trajectory of my research activity. I start with the description of my initial attempts to define the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the pathogenesis of broadly defined negative symptoms. Then, I report on the evidence that led me to realize that no progress in research on schizophrenia negative symptoms could occur without considering the heterogeneity and complexity of the construct. Finally, I illustrate my attempts to succeed in this direction and the most pressing unsolved issues in this research field.
Left hemispheric stroke in a professional artist: A prospective case study
2021, Cortex
Several papers have investigated the effect of stroke on creativity. While initial evidence favored right hemispheric dominance in artwork creation, subsequent well-founded research has established the left hemispheric participation in creativity, supporting the idea of bi-hemispheric role in artistic production. We here describe the case of a renowned artist who suffered a left hemispheric ischemic stroke involving the occipito-temporal region and subsequently manifested several difficulties in producing visual artworks. We documented his recovery phases in a prospective way during the initial months following stroke and observed that, although his constructional abilities recovered to a significant extent over 3 months, spontaneous creation was persistently impaired. The right hemispheric role in visual art is linked mainly to visuo-spatial skills and global attention, while left hemispheric participation is thought to be related to focal attention and visual imagery. Our case study lends support to the idea that art is a bi-hemispheric function with important complementary contributions from both the right and left hemisphere.
Aging and Creativity
2021, Aging and Creativity
The neural basis underlying the relation between the action identification level and delay discounting: The medial and orbital frontal cortex functional connectivity with the precuneus
2021, International Journal of Psychophysiology
Previous studies have elucidated that action identification level brings ubiquitous effects in human life. The higher identification level is widely associated with future-oriented perspective, goal-directed actions, less impulsivity and so forth. However, little is known about how it relates to delay discounting. To address this issue, we sought to investigate the neural underpinning to understand their relations using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) approaches. The behavioral results revealed that higher identification level was correlated with less discounting rate. The VBM results showed that gray matter (GM) volumes in left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG) were positively correlated with action identification level. The RSFC results found that action identification level was positively associated with the functional connectivity between left OFC-left precuneus, and left mPFC-right precuneus respectively. Moreover, the structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that the association between the identification level and delay discounting was completely mediated by coupling of combined left OFC-left precuneus and left mPFC-right precuneus. These findings suggested that the functional communications within these brain regions in valuation and episodic prospection may account for the relationship between action identification level and delay discounting. The results enhanced our understanding of their relations from neural basis.
Recruiting the right hemisphere: Sex differences in inter-hemispheric communication during semantic verbal fluency
2020, Brain and Language
Sex differences in cognitive functions are heavily debated. Recent work suggests that sex differences do stem from different processing strategies utilized by men and women. While these processing strategies are likely reflected in different brain networks, so far the link between brain networks and processing strategies remains speculative. In the present study we seek for the first time to link sex differences in brain activation patterns to sex differences in processing strategies utilizing a semantic verbal fluency task in a large sample of 35 men and 35 women, all scanned thrice. For verbal fluency, strategies of clustering and switching have been described. Our results show that men show higher activation in the brain network supporting clustering, while women show higher activation in the brain network supporting switching. Furthermore, converging evidence from activation results, lateralization indices and connectivity analyses suggests that men recruit the right hemisphere more strongly during clustering, but women during switching. These results may explain findings of differential performance and strategy-use in previous behavioral studies.
Updating spatial working memory in a dynamic visual environment
2019, Cortex
The present review describes recent developments regarding the role of the eye movement system in representing spatial information and keeping track of locations of relevant objects. First, we discuss the active vision perspective and why eye movements are considered crucial for perception and attention. The second part focuses on the question of how the oculomotor system is used to represent spatial attentional priority, and the role of the oculomotor system in maintenance of this spatial information. Lastly, we discuss recent findings demonstrating rapid updating of information across saccadic eye movements. We argue that the eye movement system plays a key role in maintaining and rapidly updating spatial information. Furthermore, we suggest that rapid updating emerges primarily to make sure actions are minimally affected by intervening eye movements, allowing us to efficiently interact with the world around us.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Trends in Neurosciences

ReviewBehavioural effects of frontal-lobe lesions in man

Brain Res.

J. Psychiatr. Res.

Neurosci. Lett.

Brain Res.

Cortex

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav.

Neuropsychologia

Surg. Neurol.

Cortex

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Exp. Neurol.

Behav. Brain Res.

Brain Res.

Neuropsychologia

Brain

Brain

J. Comp. Neurol.

Review
Behavioural effects of frontal-lobe lesions in man