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.
D000368:Aged; D000381:Agraphia / Q000523:psychology; D000849:Anomia / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D001041:Aphasia, Wernicke / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004411:Dyslexia, Acquired / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed