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LETTERS to Appeared r 322 Joumnal ofNeurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1993;56:322-324 severe than at onset, while his previous rhage involving the right temporo-parietal prosodic difficulties and headache had dis- region. A month later, the AVM was surgi- J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry: first published as 10.1136/jnnp.56.3.322-a on 1 March 1993. Downloaded from LETTERS TO appeared. Neurological examination, tonal cally removed. 2e that time, the patient audiometry and standard neuropsychologi- has experienced Mormal health. THE EDITOR cal examination were normal. In particular, The correct characterisation of this he showed no language impairment; oral patient's disturbances poses considerable and writtenl comprehension of complex pas- difficulties. It is neither auditory agnosia nor sages was good. He was able to recognise word deafness, given his correct perfor- simple and complex figures and recognise mance on neuropsychological tests. The faces, both familiar and unknown, on com- complexity of his deficits, on the other A case ofmusic imperception parison tasks. On a meaningful sound hand, rule out .their being due to "paracou- recognition test, he recognised animal, sia", that is, simple distortion in the percep- Defective perception of music due to an human and environmental sounds and tion of sound. altered capacity to discriminate the elemen- voices, effortlessly. The patient was This impairment could instead be classi- tary components of musical stimuli ambidextrous; there was no family history fied as a type of receptive amusia, which can (rhythm, pitch, timbre, intensity and dura- of left handedness. manifest itself not only as the incapacity to tion) produces an alteration in the aesthetic Examination of musical abilities (recogni- discriminate between melodic patterns, tim- enjoyment of and the emotional involve- tion and production of physical features of bre and pitch, but also as qualitative alter- ment in music.' To our knowledge, there is musical sounds, plus identification and/or ations of the acoustic experience, including no previous evidence of the existence of a reproduction of rhythm, melody and har- an emotional involvement in the music.' condition in which the primary disruption is mony; vocal and instrumental performance, The patient may have lost the ability to con- to the capacity to process the musical stim- and listening to musical compositions) were vert musical perception into something ulus as a whole. We report a case of a young normal. However, he complained of diffi- emotionally or intellectually meaningful musician who, as a result of a right tem- culties from the very beginning for the lis- (the third fundamental ability of musical poro-parietal lesion, presented with loss of tening task. On hearing the pieces played on function2). Disturbances of this type are, the gestalt capacity to process music, with the piano, he complained, "my perception unfortunately, difficult to view objectively the consequent loss of aesthetic pleasure. is changed... it's flat, it's no longer 3- because of their highly subjective nature. Our patient was a 24 year old male, who dimensional; it's only on two planes... These deficits are perhaps undervalued and was an amateur musician and a skilful gui- there's no emotion. .". His difficulties overlooked, and as a result, there are only tar player. He reported an early interest in increased as the presented compositions two cases in which the loss of aesthetic music: during primary school he played became more complex: ". this is even enjoyment in listening to music' or prob- keyboard instruments and during secondary worse: I can distinguish the different instru- lems in "conceiving of a whole piece" and school, the flute. He later started playing ments, but I can't perceive the whole... in "conjuring up the appropriate atmosphere the guitar, attending private lessons for two jazz pieces, the relationships between the for composition"4 are mentioned in the lit- years. accompaniment and the soloist escape me." erature. On 31 December 1987, after a muscular An EEG showed slight right temporal Even though much of our case is based strain (jumping over a gate), he noticed he abnormalities. A CT scan was scheduled, on the patient's subjective reports, it seems had difficulty in understanding "the but the patient did not keep the appoint- convincing for the selectivity of the distur- nuances of words and inflection of sen- ment. bance (altered perception of the whole and tences". The same day he realised that he On 31 April 1988 he had a generalised of the emotional component of music, with- had difficulties in understanding music: he tonic-clonic seizure: a CT scan (figure, left) out compromise to analytical perception) could not perceive the structure of musical and MRI (figure, right) showed the pres- and for the strict focal nature of the lesion pieces clearly; the relationship between the ence of a right temporo-parietal malacic (AVM involving the right plica curva and accompaniment and the soloist was indis- area, involving the plica curva and supra- the supramarginal gyrus). This supports the cemable, and aesthetic pleasure for the marginal gyrus. This area was post-haemor- hypothesis that the right hemisphere, or at musical world had completely vanished. At rhagic, with peripheral haemosiderin least some of its supramodal areas, is better the same time he complained of generalised deposits, and was surrounded by serpigi- than the left hemisphere' at performing the headache, described as pressure, mostly on nous hypointense images. A DSA showed process of appreciation of the entire sound. the right side. an fed MONICA MAZZONI arterio-venous malformation (AVM), POLICARPO MORETTI On 5 January 1988, he came under our by right sylvian branches. LUCIA PARDOSSI observation. He still complained of a recep- On 16 June 1990, he developed left MARCO VISTA tive musical impairment, although less hemianopia and headache due to a haemor- ALBERTO MURATORIO http://jnnp.bmj.com/ Neuropsychology Laboratory, Institute ofClinical Neurology, University ofPisa MICHELE PUGLIOLI Department ofNeuroradiology, Pisa, Italy Correspondence to: Dr Mazzoni, Istituto di Clinica Neurologica, Via Roma 67, 56126 Pisa, Italy. on October 2, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. 1 Benton AL. Le amusie. In: Critchley M, Henson RA, eds. La Musica e il Cervello. Padova: Piccin, 1987:397-417. 2 Wertheim N. Esiste una localizzazione anatomica per le facolta' musicali? In Critchley M, Henson RA, eds. La musica e il cervello. Padova: Piccin, 1987:294-310. 3 Mazzucchi A, Marchini C, Budai R, Parma M. A case of receptive amusia with promi- nent timbre perception defect. Journal Neurol, Neurosurg Psychianty 1982;45:644-7. 4 Judd T, et al. (unpublished research) quoted by Kaplan JA, Gardner H. Artistry after uni- lateral brain disease. In: Boller F, Grafman J, eds. Handbook of neuropsychology. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1989:147. 5 Gates A, Bradshaw JL. Music perception and cerebral asymmetries. Cortex 1977;13: 390-401. Fr6goli delusion and erotomania Figure Left: CT scan (2 May 1988) showing a ribbon-shaped malacic area in the right temporo-parietal region, the posterior part ofwhich has absorbed contrast agent The Fregoli delusion involves the belief that Right: MRI (5 May 1988) showing the malacic area involving the plica curva and the a familiar person disguises himself or herself supramarginal gyrus. as others. It was named after an Italian Letters to the Editor 323 actor, Leopoldo Fregoli, who was famous absence of a previous scar on his face. She some years previously the patient had a long for his ability to impersonate people. was convinced that Erik Estrada was in love love affair with this cousin (lasting over 20 J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry: first published as 10.1136/jnnp.56.3.322-a on 1 March 1993. Downloaded from In their original description of this delu- with her and planned to marry her one day. years, and leading to the birth of her only sion, Courbon and Fail' noted that their Past medical history revealed childhood child). patient experienced other delusions whose epilepsy until the age of 9 years, phenobar- Data for this previous case are also pre- content was mainly erotic. The association bitone being stopped at the age of 11 years. sented in the table, for comparison with the of Fregoli delusion and erotomania has only There was no family history of mental dis- patient we describe here. Both patients were been occasionally reported since, though in order. Routine haematological, biochemical impaired at recognising familiar faces, some Fregoli cases erotomania forms an and serological examinations were normal. matching disguised faces, and showed obvious background possibility.2' A review Physical examination revealed no abnormal- much poorer recognition memory for faces of misidentification syndromes and sexuali- ity. An EEG showed a moderate excess of than words. Although an EEG suggested ty by Barton and Barton2 noted that eroto- mixed irregular and rhythmic slow activity bilateral abnormalities for our present mania has been found to be a feature in at 2-6 HZ and 10-30uV in the central and patient, these face processing impairments various forms of delusional misidentifica- post-central regions. She refused neuro- point toward involvement of the right cere- tion, and included an additional description imaging. bral hemisphere, which has been noted as a of a case of a Fregoli-like delusion and ero- Neuropsychological tests of face process- feature in other cases of erotomania and tomania, in which a female patient claimed ing were also carried out. Details of the delusional misidentification.2'5 that another patient was an ex-boyfriend, tests used are given in Young, et al,5 which We gratefully acknowledge the support provided going under an assumed name, and that includes data from 10 male controls aged by ESRC grant R000231922. they were still deeply in love. 25-35 years. Results are summarised in the S WRIGHT We describe a further case for whom the table.
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