Category-specific comprehension deficit restricted to body parts

Abstract

A patient, HT, with severe Broca's aphasia demonstrated marked difficulty in pointing to body parts in the face of excellent comprehension for all other word categories. This profound deficit of pointing to body parts was demonstrated for both oral and visual presentation of names and under all response conditions. He also showed impairment In pointing to parts of animals but not parts of inanimate objects. On the other hand, he readily pointed to a body part when the related associates or clothes were verbally presented. Furthermore he could point on his own body to the part that corresponds to a part on a drawing or examiner's body. Therefore his difficulty is not autotopagnosia but in accessing names of animate bodies. A brain MRI revealed haemorrhagic infarcts in the left angular gyrus, the posterior end of the left superior temporal gyrus and the lateral part of the left frontal lobe sparing the precentral gyrus. The left parietal lobe may be related to the selective deficit of comprehension of names confined to body parts.