A CASE OF CALLOSAL AGENESIS WITH STRONG ANATOMICAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASYMMETRIES

A 30-year-old right-handed man (W.D.) with total callosal agenesis was examined neuropsychologically and with magnetic resonance imaging. Ba sic neuropsychological testing revealed normal intelligence and averag e attentional capabilities. Anatomically, W.D. shows strong leftward p erisylvian asymmetry both for the planum temporale and planum parietal e, an unusual pattern not found in our database of more than 200 brain s of young and healthy individuals. Functionally, W.D. has strong righ t hand superiority for hand skill and tactile object recognition, indi cating unusual left hemisphere dominance for both functions. Our obser vations could support the hypothesis that callosal connectivity and he mispheric asymmetry may be inversely related. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd.