PROGRESSIVE VENTRAL POSTERIOR CORTICAL DEGENERATION PRESENTING AS ALEXIA FOR MUSIC AND WORDS

Patients with posterior cortical atrophy may have dorsal visual system (occipital-parietal) dysfunction (optic ataxia, visuospatial disorien tation, and simultanagnosia), ventral visual system (occipital-tempora l) dysfunction (pure alexia, prosopagnosia, visual anemia, and agnosia ), or both. We report a professional musician with ventral system dysf unction whose first symptom was alexia for music. Subsequently, she de veloped pure alexia for words but had preserved sorting of words. Thes e observations suggest that the ventral visual system is important in music and word reading. However, sorting of words may be mediated by t he dorsal visual system.