Pain, neglect and the central representation of the body in CRPS.

Mouraux, André [UCL] Torta, Diana [UCL] Legrain, Valéry [UCL]

Studies have suggested that, alongside sensory, motor and vegetative symptoms, patients with CRPS also present unilateral cognitive deficits leading to impaired perception and utilization of the affected limb. This has led some authors to propose that CRPS patients present a neglect-like symptomatology similar to the left hemineglect that is classically observed in patients suffering from a lesion of the right hemisphere. In this presentation, we will review the data supporting the existence of neglect-like symptoms in CRPS. We will show that, even though it is clear that CRPS-related changes in cortical function do not only affect sensorimotor processes but also higher-order multisensory processing of spatial information, there is still no agreement as to whether patients with CRPS really present neglect symptoms and, if they do, what it is that they really neglect. Furthermore, we will discuss whether these neglect-like symptoms are specific for CRPS, or whether they can also be observed in other types of lateralized pain syndromes