Article

A child's brain shows a remarkable ability to recover from adverse
events such as stroke. Language functions recover particularly well, while
visuo-spatial skills are more affected by brain damage, regardless of its
localization. This study investigated the lateralization of language and visual
search after childhood stroke. METHODS: Ten patients with unilateral stroke (aged
10-19 years, five left-, five right-sided lesion) and 20 healthy controls (aged
8-20 years) completed a neuropsychological test battery and functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) intended to activate predominantly right (visual search)
and left-sided functional networks (language). RESULTS: After stroke, patients
demonstrated atypical lateralization of visual search functions (8/10 patients,
left lateralization) more often than that of language (4/10 patients, right
lateralization). There was a dissociation between the lateralization of
productive and semantic language (4/10 patients, 1/20 controls) and between the
lateralization of simple and complex visual search (3/10 patients, 3/20
controls). In patients, atypical contralateral activations occurred in the same
areas that showed decreasing activation during development in healthy participants.
CONCLUSION: The lateralization of functions depends upon the
cognitive function measured. Dissociation between the lateralization of different
language or visual search tasks can occur.

Langue : ANGLAIS