A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect

Abstract The most striking pathological manifestation of spatial cognition is visuospatial neglect in which patients omit contralesional stimuli by failing to process important features on the left side of visual or mental scenes. Despite decades of extensive neuropsychological exploration, this syn...

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Main Authors: Gilles Rode, Eric Chabanat, Marine Lunven, Juliette Courtille, Patrice Revol, Karen T. Reilly, Laure Pisella, Yves Rossetti
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-03-01
Series:Communications Psychology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00226-5
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author Gilles Rode
Eric Chabanat
Marine Lunven
Juliette Courtille
Patrice Revol
Karen T. Reilly
Laure Pisella
Yves Rossetti
author_facet Gilles Rode
Eric Chabanat
Marine Lunven
Juliette Courtille
Patrice Revol
Karen T. Reilly
Laure Pisella
Yves Rossetti
author_sort Gilles Rode
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The most striking pathological manifestation of spatial cognition is visuospatial neglect in which patients omit contralesional stimuli by failing to process important features on the left side of visual or mental scenes. Despite decades of extensive neuropsychological exploration, this syndrome has still not revealed all its mysteries. Here we present the case of a person with visuospatial neglect who spontaneously produced 40 paintings in the 3 years following his stroke. By analysing the spatial distribution of colour entropy in these paintings over the course of recovery we found that these paintings contain perturbations that include changes in colour use. This approach, borrowed from statistical physics and information theory, revealed left-right asymmetries in boundary line length of monochromatic patches as well as in colour components. While the unpainted canvas surface disappeared as soon as 26 weeks post-stroke, left-right colour patch asymmetries displayed a slower recovery over one hundred weeks. Several hypotheses that can be tested in future research emerged from this study, including the possibility that these phenomenological findings demonstrate several distinct recovery mechanisms at work.
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institution Kabale University
issn 2731-9121
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publishDate 2025-03-01
publisher Nature Portfolio
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series Communications Psychology
spelling doaj-art-66a88798f445456e99ae8195ce0ff9ea2025-08-20T03:40:47ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Psychology2731-91212025-03-01311910.1038/s44271-025-00226-5A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglectGilles Rode0Eric Chabanat1Marine Lunven2Juliette Courtille3Patrice Revol4Karen T. Reilly5Laure Pisella6Yves Rossetti7Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESUniversité Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESLaboratoire de Neuropsychologie Interventionnelle, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, PSL Research University, UPEC, Université Paris-Est, CNRS, Paris, France Paris-Est, CNRSSorbonne Université, Sciences, normes, démocratie (SND), UMR 8011, 1 rue Victor CousinUniversité Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESUniversité Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESUniversité Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESUniversité Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, TRAJECTOIRESAbstract The most striking pathological manifestation of spatial cognition is visuospatial neglect in which patients omit contralesional stimuli by failing to process important features on the left side of visual or mental scenes. Despite decades of extensive neuropsychological exploration, this syndrome has still not revealed all its mysteries. Here we present the case of a person with visuospatial neglect who spontaneously produced 40 paintings in the 3 years following his stroke. By analysing the spatial distribution of colour entropy in these paintings over the course of recovery we found that these paintings contain perturbations that include changes in colour use. This approach, borrowed from statistical physics and information theory, revealed left-right asymmetries in boundary line length of monochromatic patches as well as in colour components. While the unpainted canvas surface disappeared as soon as 26 weeks post-stroke, left-right colour patch asymmetries displayed a slower recovery over one hundred weeks. Several hypotheses that can be tested in future research emerged from this study, including the possibility that these phenomenological findings demonstrate several distinct recovery mechanisms at work.https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00226-5
spellingShingle Gilles Rode
Eric Chabanat
Marine Lunven
Juliette Courtille
Patrice Revol
Karen T. Reilly
Laure Pisella
Yves Rossetti
A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
Communications Psychology
title A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
title_full A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
title_fullStr A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
title_full_unstemmed A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
title_short A case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post-stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
title_sort case report of changes in asymmetric colour use in paintings produced over 3 years post stroke by a patient with spatial neglect
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00226-5
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