Case report of anosognosia for hemiplegia: A fMRI study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to verify the functional activation in a patient with anosognosia for hemiplegia following left brain lesions.

Methods: We report a case of a 53-year-old right-handed female patient. She came to our rehabilitative unit with a diagnosis of an ischemic major stroke in the left internal carotid artery and important hemiplegia to the right side. She underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), during which she performed a motor imagery task.

Results: The fMRI assessment showed an ischemic lesion in the frontotemporal and insular left areas. In the fMRI experiment, we revealed activation of the residual neural patterns of both hemispheres.

Conclusion: We underlined an interest in the compensation mechanism that involved neural networks near brain lesions and some areas of the contro-lesional hemisphere, suggesting that the synaptic plasticity permitted an intra and inter-hemispheric reorganization of the cerebral system.