The Posterior Fossa and Foreign Accent Syndrome: Report of Two New Cases and Review of the Literature.
Foreign accent syndrome is a rare motor speech disorder that causes patients to speak their language with a non-native accent. In the neurogenic condition, the disorder develops after lesions in the language dominant hemisphere, often affecting Broca's area, the insula, the supplementary motor area and the primary motor cortex. Here, we present two new cases of FAS after posterior fossa lesions. The first case is a 44-year-old, right-handed, Dutch-speaking man who suffered motor speech disturbances and a left hemiplegia after a pontine infarction. Quantified SPECT showed a bilateral hypoperfusion in the inferior lateral prefrontal and medial inferior frontal regions as well as a significant left cerebellar hypoperfusion. Further clinical investigations led to an additional diagnosis of brainstem cognitive affective syndrome which closely relates to Schmahmann's syndrome. The second patient was a 72-year-old right-handed polyglot English man who suffered a stroke in the vascular territory of the left posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) and developed a foreign accent in his mother tongue (English) and in a later learnt language (Dutch). In this paper, we discuss how the occurrence of this peculiar motor speech disorder can be related to a lesion affecting the posterior fossa structures.
Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, CLIN, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.|Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Stefanie
S
Keulen
Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, CLIN, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium. peter.marien5@telenet.be.|Department of Neurology and Memory Clinic, ZNA Middelheim Hospital, Lindendreef 1, B-2020, Antwerp, Belgium. peter.marien5@telenet.be.
Peter
P
Mariën
Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, CLIN, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Kim
K
van Dun
Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Roelien
R
Bastiaanse
Unité d'Étude du Mouvement (UEM), FNRS, ULB Erasme, Brussels, Belgium.
Mario
M
Manto
Department of Language and Communication Science, City University, London, UK.|Computational Linguistics and Psycholinguistics Research Center (CLIPS), Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium.
Jo
J
Verhoeven
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology
Cerebellum; Foreign accent syndrome; Posterior fossa; SPECT