The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Motor neglect and related disorders
Language	J
AuthorList	Yoshitsugu Nakagawa
Affiliation	Faculty of Nursing and Social Services, Health Sciences University of Hokkaido
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 27 (4), 315-325, 2011
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Motor neglect is characterized by "underutilization" of unilateral limbs, with striking reversibility from this underutilization by examiner's encouragements. The word "underutilization" implies meanings of "lack and/or decrease and/or decline and/or extinction of movements both with (1) and without (2) increasing usage of healthy limbs (the latter (2) is called akinesia by Heilman et al.)." This reversibility can be roughly regarded as a reverse condition of "automatico-voluntary dissociation." Motor neglect can occur due to frontal lesion, parietotemporal lesion, and lesion of deep gray matter area. In the report by Castaigne et al. (1970), two of three cases showed motor neglect due to parietotemporal lesion. Interestingly these two cases both showed normal movement or normal manipulation of objects once they grasped them (or during touching). Similar phenomenon of normal movements under the target-grasped condition could be observed in cases of behavioral disorders other than motor neglect. Universal validity of reversibility after grasping in cases of motor neglect with parietotemporal lesions will be further confirmed. Depending with ideas and a theory for apraxia adopted by an examiner, "lack and/or decrease and/or decline and/or extinction of movements" can be variously judged as akinesia, intermittent initiation difficulty, diagonistic araxia, or unilateral ideomotor apraxia. These symptoms should be precisely investigated and re-classified in near future.
Keywords	motor neglect, akisesia, intermittent initiation difficulty, diagonistic apraxia, ideomotor apraxia