ANOSOGNOSIC GRAPHOMIMIA - A PARTICULAR VA RIETY OF HYPERGRAPHIS AFTERINFARCTION OF THE RIGHT SYLVIAN ARTERY

Following a massive infarction in the territory of the right sylvian a rtery; a right-handed patient with a left hemiplegia and onosognosia, developed a peculiar hypergraphia. It consisted of an inappropriate an d permanent writing behaviour, disappearing only during sleep. Space-c onstructional components of writing were severely disturbed Graphemes were poorly formed. The graphic disturbances were different from hyper graphia previously. described in stroke patients who produced linguist ically correct but semantically loose writing. The were also different from graphomania reported in a case of fronto-callosal glioma. Our ca se of anosognosic hypergraphia suggests a sudden loss of inhibition of writing activity of the left hemisphere. The term graphomimia is prop osed to distinguish this writing behaviour from the cases of hypergrap hia previously reported and from graphomania.