Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Assal.
A method is described for provoking conflict between prosody and syntax in orally enounced phrases. The results obtained in a group of normal subjects show that there is restructuring of syntax organization in a phrase heard with abnormal intonation.
We have followed up the very severe memory troubles of a 12 year old girl after a craniopharyngiomectomy. We discuss the interest of this observation referring in particular to age, since the amnesic syndrome of the child is a little documented area. A tumoral etiology for an amnesic syndrome is rare. In most of such cases craniopharyngioma is at the origin of mnesic troubles in the adult. When craniopharyngioma is quite frequent in the child, an amnesic syndrome is rarely observed.
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A 71 year-old female patient was investigated during several months after a double left hemispheric lesion of vascular origin. The larger lesion was temporo-occipital, the second one parietal. The main neurological disorder was a right homonymous hemianopia. Clinical and neuroradiological data confirmed the integrity of the right hemisphere. There was neither a global deterioration of intellectual capacities nor aphasia. In particular, visual agnosia was excluded by a series of matching and functional classification tests. Nevertheless the objects and their pictures, which the patient could recognize, could not be named. The lack of words was limited to the visual modality. No apraxia neither ideomotor nor ideational was present on verbal commands, but the evocation of movements for the use of objects was deficient if the stimulation was visual. This disorder is considered in the frame of the visual-gestural disconnection and thus represents what we propose to call visual apraxia. Further we discuss the disorders of constructive apraxia which are characterized by the poor reproduction of models when executed by the right hand whereas the reproduction by the left hand is incorrect.
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The recognition of animal cries and their onomatopoeias was compared during the course of right or left unilateral cortical lesions. A double dissociation is noted; in left-sided affections there is a more severe deficiency to onomatopoeia than to cries, whereas in right-sided lesions the quality of the performances is reversed. These results suggest that the right hemisphere is dominant in the auditive recognition of familiar sounds, and supply information as to the linguistic value of onomatopoeias.
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The authors report six children with acquired aphasia of unknown etiology. The clinical picture was clearly different from that seen in the usual childhood aphasias and resemble other cases initially reported as "syndrome of acquired aphasia with convulsive disorder". All had associated paroxysmal EEG abnormalities, and 5 have had clinical seizures. The language disorder has improved or remained stationary and no other neurological signs have developed. Our review of the literature and the study of our personal cases show no uniform clinical picture in these children. Three different clinical patterns seem to emerge. The first group show rapid onset and recovery of aphasia, frequent fluctuations in the severity of the language deficit typical of so-called epileptic aphasia. These children appear to have a better prognosis. The second group show worsening of the aphasic deficit after repeated seizures or episodes of aphasia. In the third group progressive deficit in language comprehension (auditory agnosia) with a variable degree of recovery and rare or no clinical seizures. The possible significance of the EEG abnormalities has been discussed and the importance of the aphasia on general behavior and the problems of differential diagnosis have been stressed.
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A study of voice discrimination by unilateral brain-damaged patients is presented. Performance of this task is a very sensitive index of the presence of a cerebral lesion. The worst results are observed when there is a lesion of the right hemisphere and particularly when the right temporal lobe is involved.
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