Which description best fits emotional changes after a right hemisphere stroke?

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Multiple Choice

Which description best fits emotional changes after a right hemisphere stroke?

Damage to the right hemisphere often disrupts how we perceive and express emotions, so patients may become indifferent and show a flat affect while also struggling to read others’ emotions from facial expressions. This combination—reduced emotional responsiveness plus poor interpretation of facial cues—sits squarely with right-hemisphere social-emotional processing deficits. Language problems and apraxia are typically linked to left-hemisphere damage, so that option doesn’t fit. Severe anterograde amnesia points to medial temporal damage, not the common right-hemisphere emotional changes. Prosopagnosia involves recognizing faces, not primarily reading emotional expressions, so it’s not the best fit for describing post-stroke emotional changes.

Damage to the right hemisphere often disrupts how we perceive and express emotions, so patients may become indifferent and show a flat affect while also struggling to read others’ emotions from facial expressions. This combination—reduced emotional responsiveness plus poor interpretation of facial cues—sits squarely with right-hemisphere social-emotional processing deficits. Language problems and apraxia are typically linked to left-hemisphere damage, so that option doesn’t fit. Severe anterograde amnesia points to medial temporal damage, not the common right-hemisphere emotional changes. Prosopagnosia involves recognizing faces, not primarily reading emotional expressions, so it’s not the best fit for describing post-stroke emotional changes.

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