Paroxysmal Aphasias

Abstract

Forty cases of paroxysmal aphasia were found in a sample of 4,000 patients with epilepsy. Twenty-five had structural brain damage demonstrated by CT scan. Except for two cases, the epileptic focus was located in the left hemisphere. Two patients had a paroxysmal alexia associated with the aphasic disorder. Though preliminary, our data suggest a correlation of dysphasic components with posterior lesions and phonatory components with anterior lesions.

Negative seizures

“…Further, her deficits partially resolved with lorazepam acutely, suggesting that the deficits were at least partially the direct result of epileptic activity, although postictal effects probably contributed to the slower complete resolution of deficits. Ictal aphasia has been reported (Ardila et al, 1988;Gilmore et al, 1981), but to our knowledge, clear demonstration of ictal ideomotor apraxia has not been described. Another interesting feature of Case 5 is the acute catastrophic depression, which resolved dramatically over the course of a few days in association with marked improvement in her aphasia and hemiparesis.…”

A Proposed Neurological Interpretation of Language Evolution

“…Similarly, the sequencing (contiguity) disorder can potentially be found at two different levels: (a) when sequencing words in a sentence, as is observed in Broca's aphasia (designated by Luria as kinetic motor aphasia), or (b) in sequencing sentences in discourse, found in so-called transcortical motor aphasia (named by Luria as dynamic aphasia). It is interesting to keep in mind that different subtypes of Wernicke's aphasia are frequently distinguished (e.g., [ 40 , 71 ]). For Luria, so-called acoustic agnosic aphasia, acoustic amnesic aphasia, and amnesic aphasia are simply subtypes of the aphasia syndrome usually referred to as Wernicke's (or sensory) aphasia.…”

“…Moreover, the naming defect can be limited to a particular semantic category (for instance, naming living things, tools, and geographical places) [ 77 – 80 ]; the naming defect can be so specific as to refer just to “medical terms” [ 81 ]. It has been consequently suggested that there is a kind of “brain mapping” of the word memories, associated with different semantic categories [ 71 ].…”