PALILALIA AND UNILATERAL SPATIAL NEGLECT CAUSED BY A RIGHT FRONTAL LESION - CASE-STUDY

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.