Prism adaptation reduces the disengage deficit in right brain damage patients.

Recent research has shown that prism adaptation alleviates some of the symptoms of neglect. Although prism adaptation can aid patients with neglect, the mechanisms underlying these benefits remain largely unknown. One way in which prisms may work is by altering attentional orienting mechanisms known to be impaired in neglect. To investigate this hypothesis, we tested four right brain damaged patients (two with neglect) on a reflexive covert attention task before and after rightward prism adaptation and compared them with a group of healthy controls who underwent sham prism adaptation. Results demonstrated that rightward prism adaptation reduced both the rightward attentional bias, and the disengage deficit in patients with right brain damage irrespective of the presence of neglect.