INTER-HEMISPHERE DISCONNECTION SYNDROME

Abstract

The probably diagnosis of Marchiafava-Bignami disease was made in a chronic alcoholic patient (human) because of rapid onset of signs of inter-hemisphere disconnection. These included left visual and tactile anomia, difficulty of a limb to imitate postures presented in the contralateral visual half-field, constructional apraxia of the right hand, agraphia of the left hand, left auditive extinction in the dichotic test, difficulty in responses of the left limbs to verbal orders [termed left aphasic apraxia] and a bimanual asynergia, sometimes presenting an aspect of diagnostic dyspraxia. These symptoms clearly show the competence of the left hemisphere for verbal tasks, or more generally, those of an imaginary or conceptual nature, and that of the right hemisphere for visuospatial tasks, or more generally, those required by concrete situations.