PURE ANOMIA WITH SPARED ACTION NAMING DUE TO A LEFT TEMPORAL LESION

We report the case of a patient who, after surgical ablation of an ang ioma in the depth of the left temporal lobe, developed a highly select ive impairment of naming. A detailed investigation allowed to exclude a disorder of visual recognition or of semantic memory, and indicated the output lexicon as the most probable site of impairment. Grammatica l class effects, with superior action naming, and a high consistency w ithin and across output modalities Further characterized the patient's performance. Together with some other recently reported cases, this p atient suggests a correlation between temporal lobe lesions outside We rnicke's area and output lexicon disorders. A relatively spared action naming seems to be a characteristic Feature of this pattern of impair ment.