Aphasia And Brain Organization

This book presents the work on aphasia coming out of the Institute for Aphasia and Stroke in Norway during its 10 years of existence. Rather than reviewing previously presented work, it was my desire to give a unified analysis and discussion of our accumulated data. The empirical basis for the analysis is a fairly large group (249 patients) investigated with a standard, comprehensive set of procedures. Tests of language functions must be developed anew for each language, but comparison of my findings with other recent compre hensive studies of aphasia is faciliated by close parallels in test meth ods (Chapter 2). The classification system used is currently the most accepted neurological system, but I have operationalized it for research purposes (Chapter 3). The analyses presented are based on the view that aphasia is an aspect of a multidimensional disturbance of brain function. Find ings of associated disturbances and variations in the aphasic condition over time have been dismissed by some as irrelevant to the study of aphasia as a language deficit. My view is that this rich and complex set of findings gives important clues to the organization of brain functions in humans. I present analyses of the relationship of aphasia to neuropsychological disorders in conceptual organization, memory, visuospatial abilities and apraxia (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), and I study the variations with time of the aphasic condition (Chapter 8).

Neuropsychology has presented a particularly formidable array of devel opments during recent years. The number of methods, theoretical ap proaches, and publications has been steadily increasing, permitting a step-by-step approach to a deeper understanding of the tremendously complex relationships existing between brain and behavior. This volume was planned as a collection of papers that, in one way or another, present new research and clinical perspectives or interpretations about brain-behavior relationships. Some chapters present new research in specific topics, others summarize the evidence for a particular the oretical position, and others simply review the area and suggest new perspectives of research. Consistent with the spirit in which the book was planned, the authors present and propose new avenues for developing neuropsychology and understanding the organization of cognitive activity. Part I is devoted to basic theoretical and technical approaches in studying brain organization of cognitive processes. Hanlon and Brown ("Microgenesis: Historical Review and Current Studies") present an over view of some clinical and experimental work from the standpoint of mi crogenetic theory. Microgenesis is considered to be the structural devel opment of a cognition through qualitatively different stages. The authors discuss the growing dissatisfaction with both the old center and pathway theories and the newer modular or componental accounts. They also ex plore how micro genesis can be extended to the interpretation of symp toms of brain damage in developing a structural model of hierarchic levels through which the process of cognitive function unfolds.

Language Functions and Brain Organization

An introduction to neurolinguistics showing how language is organized in the brain.

Studies in Neurolinguistics, Volume 3 presents detailed case histories, multi-subject experimental studies, literature reviews, and research papers that employ a variety of experimental and observational techniques. This volume contains seven chapters that focus on a wide range of research in the field of neurolinguistics. Chapter 1 discusses the various approaches to the problem of auditory comprehension in aphasia. A survey of the world's literature on bilingualism and aphasia is provided in chapter 2. The third chapter examines the different models and explanations for conduction aphasia. Chapter 4 provides a synthesis of the anatomic, physiologic, and behavioral research on the role of the limbic system in human communication. Chapter 5 presents a model of individual differences in hemispheric functioning, in which a number of theories about the left and right hemispheres are analyzed and compared. Chapter 6 shows how different levels of language are revealed. The last chapter addresses "The Question of Electrophysiological Asymmetries Preceding Speech" in a study of the readiness potentials over the motor and premotor regions in eight subjects. Linguists, psychologists, and neurologists will find the book highly informative.

Drawing on a wide variety of modern and classical sources and multiple disciplines, this book presents hypothesizes about the relationship between human language and thought to brain specialization. The authors focus on aphasia-language disorder resulting from local brain damage and show that the clinical aspect represents not only loss of function of the damaged area, but also results from the interaction between damaged and intact areas of the brain.

How do people with brain damage communicate? This collection of articles examines the ways in which aphasia and other neurological deficits lead to language impairments that shape the production, reception and processing of language.

This book concerns the neural organization of language in the healthy brain and in persons with aphasia. The novel concept of neural multifunctionality explains how language is created in the healthy brain, resolves contradictions between classical aphasiology and contemporary understandings of brain-language relations, and serves as the neurobiological basis for development of new approaches to aphasia therapy.