A 55-year-old, right-handed Japanese man manifested palilalia as well
as unilateral spatial neglect following a subcortical haemorrhage in t
he frontal lobe. CT and SPECT showed the lesions to be localized in th
e right frontal lobe, with no obvious involvement of the basal ganglia
. At an early stage this patient exhibited a combination of an explora
tory-motor and a perceptual-sensory neglect, which later changed to ex
ploratory-motor neglect alone. The palilalia, which persisted for 1 ye
ar, was characterized by the repetition of words or phrases, not singl
e syllables. While it seemed that the palilalia and unilateral spatial
neglect were induced by the same lesion, their clinical courses diffe
red; thus they were probably produced by differing mechanisms.