title: Disruption of semantic influence on writing following a left prefrontal lesion.
abstract: We report a patient with impaired spontaneous writing, written naming, and homophone spelling, consistent with a disruption of semantic influence on writing. However, writing to dictation by both the phonological and lexical spelling systems was intact. In addition, general semantic abilities were spared, as indicated by preserved auditory and reading comprehension. We propose that our patient could not incorporate meaning into writing because of a disruption of both direct and indirect connections between semantics and the orthographic output lexicon. The writing dysfunction was accompanied by a similar impairment of speech output, suggesting that it was part of a more general disturbance of semantic influence on language production following left prefrontal damage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
authors.forename: S Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Rapcsak
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Rubens
mesh_terms: D000849:Anomia / Q000503:physiopathology; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002543:Cerebral Hemorrhage / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D014956:Writing