A case of generalized auditory agnosia with unilateral subcortical brain lesion.
The mechanisms and functional anatomy underlying the early stages of speech perception are still not well understood. Auditory agnosia is a deficit of auditory object processing defined as a disability to recognize spoken languages and/or nonverbal environmental sounds and music despite adequate hearing while spontaneous speech, reading and writing are preserved. Usually, either the bilateral or unilateral temporal lobe, especially the transverse gyral lesions, are responsible for auditory agnosia. Subcortical lesions without cortical damage rarely causes auditory agnosia. We present a 73-year-old right-handed male with generalized auditory agnosia caused by a unilateral subcortical lesion. He was not able to repeat or dictate but to perform fluent and comprehensible speech. He could understand and read written words and phrases. His auditory brainstem evoked potential and audiometry were intact. This case suggested that the subcortical lesion involving unilateral acoustic radiation could cause generalized auditory agnosia.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Research Institute for Convergence of Biomedical Science and Technology, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan 626-770, Korea.
Hyee
H
Suh
Yong-Il
YI
Shin
Soo Yeon
SY
Kim
Sook Hee
SH
Kim
Jae Hyeok
JH
Chang
Yong Beom
YB
Shin
Hyun-Yoon
HY
Ko
Auditory agnosia; Unilateral subcortical lesion