Category-specific recognition and naming deficits following resection of a right anterior temporal lobe tumor in a patient with atypical language lateralization

We present a patient with right-hemispheric speech lateralization who exhibited severe recognition and naming deficits for unique objects (famous faces and landmarks) and grossly normal recognition and naming performances for nonunique objects (animals and man-made objects) following an anterior right temporal lobe (TL) resection of a ganglioglioma. While recognition deficits have been reported for famous faces following right temporal pole lesions, and for landmarks and geographic regions following right TL damage in general, this is the first reported case of both recognition and naming deficits for these objects resulting from a single lesion. These results are consistent with research suggesting that the neuroanatomic substrates for the recognition and naming of unique objects lie in the anterior TL regions. Left temporal pole lesions have been associated with naming deficits for unique objects while right temporal pole lesions have been associated with recognition deficits for unique objects. However, these findings suggest that the substrates of naming can be located in homotopic regions of the right hemisphere when language lateralization is atypical. As various object categories appear to have different neuroanatomical representations in the TLs, we discuss the possible benefits of sampling a wider array of objects during cortical stimulation mapping of language.

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