Three cases of anomic aphasia after lesions in and/or around the basal ganglia.
The present paper reports 3 cases of aphasia with small lesions in the region of the basal ganglia to discuss whether neostrial dysfunction can cause aphasic symptoms. The Standard Language Tests of Aphasia (SLTA) was used to assess the type and degree of aphasia. Two patients with infarction either in the left putamen or in the head of the left caudate nucleus showed severe disturbance only in recalling words, especially nouns. The other patient showed the same symptom, in addition to writing disturbance that developed shortly after surgical extirpation of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in the left caudate nuclei. The symptoms common to the 3 patients corresponded well to the "anomic aphasia" proposed by Benson. The aphasic symptoms disappeared completely or largely within several months. This easy reversibility suggests that the aphasic disorder in the three patients was caused by damage not to the basal ganglia themselves, but to the affecting axons passing through or by the nuclei.
Sonobe
N
N
Department of Neuropsychiatry, Fukushima Medical College, Japan.
Yashima
Y
Y
Takahashi
Y
Y
Katayose
K
K
Kumashiro
H
H
D000368:Aged; D000849:Anomia / Q000209:etiology*; D001480:Basal Ganglia Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed