Stroke patients with visuospatial neglect (VSN) have difficulties responding to visual information located in the contralesional hemifield, affecting many daily life activities (ADL) such as eating, reading and mobility. Visual Scanning Therapy (VST) is widely used in clinical practice to ameliorate symptoms of VSN. Yet, not all patients benefit from this training and many training sessions are needed in order to achieve stable results. One potentially promising improvement to the VST is based on the theory that different effectors of the motor systems (e.g., eyes, hands) independently allocate attention during the programming of the movement (i.e., Pre Motor Theory of Attention (PMT)). Here, we studied this direct implementation of the PMT and tested whether a congruent movement training (CMT: congruent -i.e., executed at the same time to the same location-eye and pointing movements) is more effective to attenuate symptoms of neglect compared to VST. This study can be seen as a proof of concept. Attenuation of neglect symptoms was found in the CMT group after just 5 h of training in the subacute phase of neglect. In contrast, no training effects were found in the VST group. These findings indicate the potential of CMT which is a minimal –yet crucial-upgrade of the standard VST protocol that can be easily implemented in the clinic.

具有视觉空间忽视 (VSN) 的中风患者难以对位于对侧半球的视觉信息做出反应，从而影响许多日常生活活动 (ADL)，例如饮食、阅读和行动能力。视觉扫描疗法 (VST) 在临床实践中被广泛用于改善 VSN 的症状。然而，并非所有患者都能从这种培训中受益，需要进行多次培训才能获得稳定的结果。VST 的一个潜在的有希望的改进是基于运动系统的不同效应器（例如，眼睛、手）在运动编程期间独立分配注意力的理论（即前运动注意力理论（PMT））。在这里，我们研究了 PMT 的这种直接实现，并测试了一致运动训练（CMT：congruent -ie, 与 VST 相比，同时执行相同的位置（眼睛和指向运动）更有效地减轻忽视症状。这项研究可以看作是一个概念证明。在忽视的亚急性期训练仅 5 小时后，CMT 组发现忽视症状减轻。相比之下，在 VST 组中没有发现训练效果。这些发现表明 CMT 的潜力，它是标准 VST 协议的最小但至关重要的升级，可以在临床中轻松实施。在 VST 组中没有发现训练效果。这些发现表明 CMT 的潜力，它是标准 VST 协议的最小但至关重要的升级，可以在临床中轻松实施。在 VST 组中没有发现训练效果。这些发现表明 CMT 的潜力，它是标准 VST 协议的最小但至关重要的升级，可以在临床中轻松实施。