Short-term memory deficit after focal parietal damage

The neuropsychological symptomatology is reported for a 44-year-old patient of normal intelligence, EE, after removal of a circumscribed left hemisphe ric tumor the major part of which was located in the angular gyrus and in t he subcortical white matter. EE had a distinct and persistent short-term me mory impairment together with an equally severe impairment in transcoding n umbers. On the other hand, his performance was flawless in calculation task s and in all other tests involving number processing. Impairments in langua ge rests could be attributed to his short-term memory deficit, which furthe rmore was characterized by a strong primacy effect in the absence of a rece ncy effect. Mis graphomotoric output was temporarily inhibited. The patient , with a strong left-sided dominance, manifested a hi-hemispherical activat ion of the Broca and Wernicke regions in a positron-emission-tomographic in vestigation when required to produce verbs which he was to derive from noun s. The findings in EE suggest that unilateral and restricted lateral pariet al damage can result in a pro found short-term memory deficit together with a transcoding deficit for stimuli extending over only a few digits or syll ables in the absence of any symptoms of the Gerstmann syndrome.