Rapid Amelioration of Motor Aphasia

Abstract

Three right-handed individuals suffered left inferior frontal infarction with clinical evidence of language and dyspraxic deficit to corroborate dominance of the left cerebral hemisphere. Pathologically, the infarction involved not only the inferior frontal gray matter including Broca's area, but the depths of the underlying white matter, through which are considered to pass intrahemispherical and transcallosal projections relating Broca's area and motor cortex to the other cortical areas and the bulbar apparatus. All three cases showed dramatically rapid amelioration of a deficit in speaking aloud. Explanation of these cases required a revision of current concepts of the means by which the inferior frontal regions of both sides mediate speaking aloud, and the means by which the dominant posterior Sylvian region controls the inferior frontal(s).