Transcortical Aphasias (Brain Damage, Behaviour and Cognition)

Transcortical aphasias is the term used for syndromes in which the ability to repeat language is relatively preserved despite marked disturbances in other linguistic domains. Although there are a number of well-known reference texts on language disturbances after acquired brain damage that uncover the classical syndromes of aphasia (e.g. conduction aphasia) in a comprehensive fashion, this monograph is unique in its coverage of the different clinical, linguistic, and neuroanatomical aspects of transcortical aphasias. This book offers a comprehensive, contemporary and scholarly account of transcortical aphasias by combining valuable information upon cognitive neuropsychology, neuroimaging and functional localization of residual repetition and other language functions among patients with transcortical aphasias. The book covers: historical aspects; assessment of language deficits from a clinical and psycholinguistic perspective; clinical phenomenology, aetiology, neural substrates, and linguistic mechanisms underlying each of the three clinically established variants of transcortical aphasias (motor, sensory, and mixed); associated phenomena such as echolalia, completion phenomenon, automatic speech, and prosody; and neuroanatomical correlates including structural and functional neuroimaging. Each chapter presents the description of original and published cases which illustrate the various clinical patterns of transcortical aphasias.

Marcelo L. Berthier