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[Vol.38 No.2 contents]
Japanese/English
Full Text of this Articlein Japanese PDF (676K) |
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SupplSupplement 1 |
| ArticleTitle | Dismantling verbal semantic memory observed in a case of cerebral abscess localized in the anterior left temporal lobe |
| Language | J |
| AuthorList | Mariko Sakai1)2), Norio Suzuki3), Takashi Nishikawa4) |
| Affiliation |
1)Department of Rehabilitation, Saiseikai Ibaraki Hospital (Department of Rehabilitation, Yukoukai General Hospital) 2)Department of Clinical Rehabilitation, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School 3)Department of Psychiatry, Shiga Prefectural General Hospital 4)Department of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences, Naragakuen University |
| Publication | Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 38 (2), 144-154, 2022 |
| Received | Oct 24, 2019 |
| Accepted | Apr 5, 2022 |
| Abstract | We qualitatively examined mild verbal semantic memory impairment in a patient with a brain abscess in the left anterior temporal lobe. The patient was a 65-year-old male university professor. His performance on general cognitive function tests was good and there were no particularly conspicuous symptoms, other than very mild aphasia. However, detailed analyses of error responses from interviews and word recognition tasks revealed the presence of minor semantic memory impairment. Characteristics of the comprehension disorder in this case were comprehension deficits in derivative meaning of words and disability in the categorical use of words; in such case, the patient attempted to use compensatory comprehension strategies based on the meaning of part of the word, the phonological context of a formula or idiom in which the word is used. We were able to better understand the deficits in comprehension with the help of Patterson's 'distributed-plus-hub' hypothesis. These findings suggest that while the patient was able to derive the meanings of concrete words based on local connections between representations of each mode through the trans-modal pathways in the cerebral region that had not been damaged, the semantic memory of abstract words that require broader representational integration had been dismantled due to damage in the semantic hub making recall difficult. |
| Keywords | anterior temporal lobe, semantic memory, semantic hub |
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