11/24. Unilateral right cerebral representation of reading in a familial left-hander.Several recent hypotheses of cerebral functional organization in natural left-handers hold that language, including reading, is localized either unilaterally in the left hemisphere or bilaterally, but not unilaterally in the right hemisphere. A case of alexia without agraphia in a left-hander with an infarct in the right occipital lobe and splenium of the corpus callosum is reported. That a permanent and complete alexia resulted from a single, right hemisphere lesion indicated that reading was completely lateralized to that hemisphere. The case demonstrates that in some natural left-handers language functions can be unilaterally represented in the right hemisphere.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
12/24. Residual reading capability in a patient with alexia without agraphia.A case of pure alexia due to an ischemic lesion of the occipital temporal region is described. Written words could be matched but not read. Immediate memory span for graphemes was defective. The reading defect probably depends on the inability to modify the written word "globally"; the phonological process was intact, but the memory disturbance impeded reading. The dissociation is explained by the preservation of word forms, which are linked to the semantic stage. Non-written stimuli trigger a "meaning" which evokes the word form and so the written word is recognized even though it cannot be read.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 4keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
13/24. Transient neuropsychological abnormalities (including Gerstmann's syndrome) during cortical stimulation.A patient with intractable partial seizures was intensively studied before surgical removal of the epileptogenic focus. A subdural electrode array was surgically placed over the left temporoparietal cortex to better localize the epileptogenic focus and localize cortical function. In addition to speech and sensory findings, acalculia, agraphia, right-left confusion, and finger agnosia were transiently produced by electrical stimulation in the perisylvian area. These findings and their relationship to the controversy surrounding Gerstmann's syndrome are discussed.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
14/24. aphasia in a prelingually deaf woman.A left parietal infarct in a prelingually deaf person resulted in an aphasia for both American sign language (ASL) and written and finger-spelled English. Originally the patient had a nearly global aphasia affecting all language systems. By five to seven weeks post-onset her symptoms resembled those of hearing aphasics with posterior lesions: fluent but paraphasic signing, anomia, impaired comprehension and repetition, alexia, and agraphia with elements of neologistic jargon. In addition, there was a pronounced sequential movement copying disorder, reduced short-term verbal memory and acalculia. In general, the patient's sign errors showed a consistent disruption in the structure of ASL signs which parallels the speech errors of oral aphasic patients. We conclude that most aphasic symptoms are not modality-dependent, but rather reflect a disruption of linguistic processes common to all human languages. This case confirms the importance of the left hemisphere in the processing of sign language. Furthermore, the results indicate that the left supramarginal and angular gyri are necessary substrates for the comprehension of visual/gestural languages.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
15/24. Alexia and agraphia in Wernicke's aphasia.Three patients with otherwise typical Wernicke's aphasia showed consistently greater impairment of reading than auditory comprehension. While this syndrome resembles alexia with agraphia, the paraphasia of speech, repetition, and naming underline the aphasic nature of the disorder. Together with previous reports of isolated word deafness in Wernicke's aphasia, these cases suggest a relative independence of auditory and visual language processing.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 5keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
16/24. Left unilateral agraphia and tactile anomia. Disturbances seen after occulusion of the anterior cerebral artery.A 53-year-old right-handed Japanese man had a callosal disconnection syndrome associated with an occlusion of the left pericallosal artery. Computerized tomography scan confirmed a left medial lesion affecting the cingulate gyrus, the paracentral lobule, the precuneus of the left hemisphere, and most probably the corpus callosum. This anterior cerebral artery syndrome was characterized by right hemiparesis with predominant crural involvement, unilateral left-sided "disconnection" agraphia, and left unilateral "disconnection" tactile naming deficit. To our knowledge, this is the first case in the literature of the anterior cerebral artery syndrome in which unilateral leftsided apraxia was not associated with agraphia. The case is also the first in which Kanji-Kana dissociation of an aphasic nature has been reported as a feature of isolated left agraphia.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 7keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
17/24. Pure dysgraphia with relative sparing of lower-case writing.We describe the cognitive analysis of a patient with acquired pure dysgraphia. She presented a peculiar dissociation between lower- and upper-case handwriting: lower-case writing was relatively spared and showed a significant superiority of words versus nonwords. Upper-case writing and oral spelling did not show lexical effects, but were affected by item length. In all modalities errors consisted mainly of single graphemic substitutions, deletions, insertions and transpositions, resulting in legal or illegal nonwords, and showed a similar distribution across letter positions. These findings were suggestive of an impairment of the graphemic output buffer, which however revealed itself to different degrees in the two handwriting styles.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.89708081705608keywords = dysgraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
18/24. Transcortical alexia with agraphia following a right temporo-occipital hematoma in a right-handed patient.We describe the case of a 51-year-old right-handed man who was affected by a transcortical alexia with agraphia and aphasia. Transcortical alexia produces errors in both reading and writing while copying is preserved. The patient had a severe alexia and was unable to read letters, words or sentences. Language examination showed mild aphasia with reduced fluency, intermittent paraphasia but a good comprehension and a normal repetition. Spontaneously and from dictation, writing was impaired by an agraphic jargon, but copying was excellent even though the patient was unable to read his own written production. There was no visual agnosia nor hemianopia. CT scan and MRI of the brain showed that there was a single right temporo-occipital hemorrhage but no lesion in the left hemisphere. Following surgical evacuation of the hematoma, the patient improved. One month after onset, his language was quite intact and reading was possible. We hypothesize that this particular syndrome was the result of a double disconnection: alexia would result from a disconnection of the right angular gyrus and the occipital associative areas by a subangular lesion; agraphia would result from a disconnection of the right angular gyrus and the semantic store, probably located in the right hemisphere.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 6keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
19/24. Right unilateral agraphia following callosal infarction in a left-hander.A left-handed Japanese man is reported who presented right-hand agraphia and tactile anomia following callosal infarction. magnetic resonance imaging revealed an ischemic lesion extending from the posterior half of the trunk to the splenium of the corpus callosum. In his right handwriting, the 'Kana' (phonogram) was more severely impaired than the 'Kanji' (ideogram), and the most frequent typewriting error was morphological followed by neographism. His visuoconstructional ability was also more impaired in the right hand than in the left. Right-hand agraphia in our case is readily explained by the right hemisphere dominance both for language and visuoconstructional ability.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 6keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
20/24. Naming difficulties in alexia with agraphia for kanji after a left posterior inferior temporal lesion.The case is described of a patient with alexia and agraphia for kanji, and severe anomia after a subcortical haemorrhage in the left posterior inferior temporal area. magnetic resonance imaging at four months after onset showed a lesion in the inferior temporal and fusiform gyri, extending from the temporo-occipital junction toward the anterior third of the temporal lobe. Comparison with other reported cases of alexia with agraphia and anomia made it clear that when accompanied by severe anomia, the lesions extended either forward to the anterior part of the middle temporal gyrus or medially to the parahippocampal gyrus. It is suggested that the disconnection of association fibres between the parahippocampal, fusiform, middle, and inferior temporal gyri, especially between the parahippocampal gyrus and the other temporal gyri, or the cortical damage to the posterior part of these gyri is essential for the production of anomia.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 6keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
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