Progressive ventral posterior cortical degeneration presenting as alexia for music and words.
Patients with posterior cortical atrophy may have dorsal visual system (occipital-parietal) dysfunction (optic ataxia, visuospatial disorientation, and simultanagnosia), ventral visual system (occipital-temporal) dysfunction (pure alexia, prosopagnosia, visual anomia, and agnosia), or both. We report a professional musician with ventral system dysfunction whose first symptom was alexia for music. Subsequently, she developed pure alexia for words but had preserved sorting of words. These observations suggest that the ventral visual system is important in music and word reading. However, sorting of words may be mediated by the dorsal visual system.
Beversdorf
D Q
DQ
Department of Neurology, University of Florida College of Medicine, and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Gainesville 32610-0236, USA.
Heilman
K M
KM
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004411:Dyslexia, Acquired / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D009410:Nerve Degeneration / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011932:Reading; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed; D014956:Writing