Aphasia secondary to left cerebellar infarction

Aphasia Induced by Infratentorial Ischemic Stroke: Two Case Reports

“…Recent infarcts in the cerebellum and midbrain, seemingly common lesions, might have interrupted these networks, inducing the rather uncommon aphasia after the infratentorial stroke. We suggest that cerebral damages before a stroke might be one of the necessary conditions responsible for infratentorial stroke-induced aphasia, although there were no detailed histories associated with such conditions in the previously reported cases (Galiano Blancart et al, 2011;Mariën et al, 1996Mariën et al, , 2000Mariën et al, , 2009Silveri et al, 1994).…”

“…Both patients reported here experienced ischemic lesions that were limited to the infratentorial region and were not observed in the cerebral hemisphere. Other cases of infratentorial stroke-induced aphasia have been reported (Galiano Blancart et al, 2011;Mariën et al, 1996Mariën et al, , 2000Mariën et al, , 2009Silveri et al, 1994; Table 1), but controversy still surrounds the existence of such aphasia, as some authors have reported negative results in studies of infratentorial stroke-induced aphasia. For example, in a study of individuals with cerebellar stroke and cognitively intact individuals, Frank et al (2010) found no significant differences in aphasia assessment results.…”

“…A crossed cerebello-cerebral diaschisis (ie, a functional depression of cerebrocortical language areas due to a reduced input to the cerebral cortex via crossed cerebello-cerebrocortical pathways) has been hypothesized as a possible neuropathological mechanism that is responsible for linguistic deficits associated with right cerebellar pathology (Frank et al, 2010). Indeed, in all of the reported cases of infratentorial stroke-induced aphasia (Galiano Blancart et al, 2011;Mariën et al, 1996Mariën et al, , 2000Mariën et al, , 2009Silveri et al, 1994), as well as in the present two cases, low-uptake lesions on SPECT or PET in the absence of either old or recent ischemic lesions were observed in the brain region that is responsible for aphasia, although in our second case, a part of the decreased uptake might have reflected covert dementia.…”

“…Cases of cerebellar-induced aphasia, or aphasia that is caused by strokes that are localized to the cerebellum and/or brain stem, have rarely been reported. To the best of our knowledge, only four cases have been reported so far: Galiano Blancart et al (2011), Mariën et al (1996Mariën et al ( , 2000Mariën et al ( , 2009, and Silveri et al (1994) (Table 1). Moreover, no reports of cases with brain stem-induced aphasia have been reported, although one case report of an individual presenting with frontal lobe syndrome with brain stem infarction does exist (Nishio et al, 2007).…”