Visual imagery in cerebral visual dysfunction.

Abstract

Many sorts of deficits in imagery follow brain damage, but the relation between the site of damage and the type of deficit is not simple or straightforward. The dissociations in performance after brain damage provide hints regarding the processing system underlying imagery, but difficulties in interpretation urge caution in mapping these findings to theoretic models. Neuroimaging techniques, such as PET and fMRI, open a window into the working brain and offer valuable information not easily accessible through the study of patients, who, as noted, may have deficits beyond those observable and may rely on compensation and neural reorganization. As we come to understand the mental imagery system more fully, such issues as the laterality of image generation are likely to prove too coarse and vague. The brain is an enormously intricate organ, and even within a circumscribed domain such as imagery it seems to process information in complex and subtle ways.