APHASIA DUE TO A SINGLE LESION OF THE SEM I-OVALE CENTER - ROLE OF MEASURING CEREBRAL BLOOD-FLOW

Sudden onset stroke occured in a right-handed vietnamiese woman speaki ng reading and writing french fluently. When first seen in our departm ent, the patient had mild right facial paresis and non fluent atypical aphasia. CT scan and MRI showed a left subcortical infarct in the sup erficial territory of the middle cerebral artery; only white matter of the semiovale centre was involved. Neurological examination revealed linguistic impairment resembling transcortical motor aphasia, with unu sual stuttering, hypophonia, occasional semantic paraphasias and phono logical reading and writing abnormalities. Non verbal cognitive functi on, gestural and buccofacial praxes were normal Cerebral blood flow st udy by SPECT was consistent with left sylvian functional deactivation.