Are there sex differences in hemispatial visual neglect after unilateral stroke?

This study examined the hypothesis of greater functional asymmetry in the male compared with the female brain for contralesional spatial neglect. One hundred thirty-eight consecutive patients with computed tomography verified unilateral first strokes were examined within two months of onset. An aggregate measure of neglect was based on four clinical tasks: copying/drawing, line bisection, line cancellation, and figure cancellation. The incidence and severity of neglect were significantly greater after right-than left-hemisphere lesions and equal in men and women. Sex differences were not found between anterior and posterior groups after left- or right-hemisphere strokes. When neglect was based on different scores between ipsilateral versus contralesional response times on a Visual Search Task, the incidence was higher in females than males with right-hemisphere lesions.