Reversal of Cerebraldominance Forlanguage
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J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry: first published as 10.1136/jnnp.49.6.628 on 1 June 1986. Downloaded from Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1986;49:628-634 Reversal of cerebral dominance for language and emotion in a corpus callosotomy patient R JOSEPH From the W. Haven V. A. Medical Center, CT UHS/The Chicago Medical School, Chicago, USA SUMMARY A case study of a right-handed individual with epilepsy and brain dysfunction of early onset is described who was found, following callosotomy (sparing the rostrum of the callosum) to be left hemisphere "dominant" for processing and/or expressing emotional and somesthetic information, and right hemisphere "dominant" in regard to the expression and comprehension of language and linguistic stimuli. Hence, a significant reversal in functional representation, due presumably to an injury suffered early in life, was observed. Moreover, following callosotomy the patient demonstrated severe disconnection syndromes in regard to right hand usage, the recognition of emotion, and the production and comprehension of linguistically related information. The left cerebrum appeared to be almost completely without linguistic representation except in regard to emotional language. The possible mechanisms involved in functional sparing and reversed repre- sentation are briefly discussed, and the effects of partial disconnection on the expression of these capacities is presented. Protected by copyright. Approximately 89% of the population are genotypic motor) and also comes hierarchically to represent right handers, of which 90-96% have been estimated functions associated with non-motor (and later matu- to be left hemisphere dominant for expressive and ring) limbic nuclei such as the basolateral division of receptive linguistic functions and fine motor con- the amygdala2' (a nucleus which is highly involved in trol.' 2 In contrast, the right cerebral hemisphere has emotionality).32 - However, because the right cere- been associated with the mediation of visual-spatial, brum matures later, when the brain is damaged early tactile, and emotional information processing, as well in life (as in birth trauma), the left cerebrum is often as the expression and comprehension of prosodic more seriously affected2' such that handedness and (intonation, melody) and emotional language.' -28 language may secondarily come to be subserved by As language (for example vocabulary and gram- the right.36-41 However, in some instances early left mar) and speech are presumably related to (and a hemisphere lesions may instead result in atypical left partial outgrowth of) motor control and handed- hemisphere language localisation. ness,1 2 29 30 it has been argued that the left hemi- Secondary acquisition of language by the right sphere comes to subserve denotative and syntactical hemisphere appears to occur at the expense of certain http://jnnp.bmj.com/ (for example sequential) aspects of linguistic func- right hemisphere capacities (for example visual- tioning because the motor regions ofthe left cerebrum spatial), such that these abilities are reduced.37 3 mature before comparable areas within the right It has been suggested that these functions are hemisphere;21 31 these maturational events appear to sacrificed because capabilities normally subserved by coincide with the development of subcortical and the left competitively "crowd" out later appearing spinal motor nuclei and pathways.2' The right hemi- functions mediated by the right; that is, by growing sphere thus comes secondarily to subserve processes into "vacant" synaptic space.2' 40 In primates, early which are more sensory or receptive in nature structural reorganisation resulting from competitive on September 25, 2021 by guest. (sensory systems in general maturing later than acquisition of functionally "vacant" synaptic space has been well demonstrated.4243 In instances such as these the functions that are displaced via crowd- Address for reprint requests: R Joseph, PhD., Neurobehavioral ing are grossly diminished as structural space is Center, Suite 240, 275 Saratoga Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95050. presumably committed.4243 Received 17 July 1984 and in final revised form 28 October 1985. Nevertheless, it remains possible, in cases where Accepted 2 November 1985. language has migrated owing to early left cerebral 628 J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry: first published as 10.1136/jnnp.49.6.628 on 1 June 1986. Downloaded from Reversal of cerebral dominance 629 injury, that right hemisphere capacities may come to terior cortex with spike and waves in the left fronto- be secondarily subserved by "vacant" undamaged temporal area. Depth electrode EEG monitoring on 16 areas in the left which are no longer committed to channels revealed three independent spike foci. However, language representation. As such, a partial reversal in CT scan appeared normal. Since it was believed that the seizures were spreading between the cerebral hemispheres functional dominance is a strong possibility. via the corpus callosum, callosotomy with sparing of the In the following case, a right-handed individual rostrum and anterior commisures was performed (by Dr with a brain injury and dysfunction ofearly onset was Dennis Spencer of the Yale University Dept of Surgery). found to be right hemisphere dominant for language Prior to surgery assessment of hemisphere specialisation (as determined via dichotic listening and sodium for receptive linguistic functioning was assessed and also amytal studies). Within two weeks of callosotomy determined via dichotic listening (see Methods and Results). (performed to control intractable seizures) it was Vocabulary, word knowledge, verbal abstract reasoning, determined that his left hemisphere was "dominant" and verbal judgement were determined to be within average for processing and/or expressing emotional and tac- (normal) limits. A significant left ear dominance for dichotically presented verbal stimuli was also established. tile information but had little or no capacity for This dominance markedly increased following callosotomy. performing expressive language related tasks. For Intracarotid sodium amytal ("Wada test") injections example, although formerly strongly right hand confirmed right hemisphere dominance for speech. No dominant in regard to most forms of motor activity expressive abilities were demonstrated following the right including writing, following callosotomy he was able hemisphere injection, indicating that the left hemisphere of to use this hand for writing only with great difficulty. this patient was unable to talk. Hence, right hemisphere In contrast, when requested to write with the left hand dominance for both receptive and expressive language was he at first refused stating that it was "impossible" but indicated. with considerable surprise discovered that he could Immediately following surgery the patient was mute and unable to himself This condition with ease. express linguistically. rap- indeed write idly cleared over the next several days. When evaluated 2 Based on these and related findings, this unique weeks later, PC complained ofdecreased sensation in the left individual also appears to be significantly different extremities (which was confirmed via neurological and neu- Protected by copyright. from some callosotomy patients, who, following ropsychological evaluation), and decreased motor control brain bisection, subsequently developed some right over the right extremities. In contrast, sensation was ade- hemisphere language capabilities.44 In addition, quately appreciated when applied to the right side and he however, when this patient was requested to write had no difficulty with left sided motor control. The Boston emotional words, the right hand (in these instances Diagnostic Aphasia battery was administered and normal only) "regained" its superiority whereas his left hand functioning determined. Nevertheless, the patient com- plained of a disturbance in his ability to write or making his performed poorly when presented with emotional formerly dominant right hand "do what I want it to". items. Perceptual-spatial skills were also found to be Attempts at writing were characterised by frequent erasures, moderately reduced. hesitations, the production and crossing out of incorrect let- ters, misspellings, etc: "I know what letters I want, but I History and preoperative evaluation can't make my (right) hand write them". When asked to use his left hand PC at first declined protesting he could not. It PC (partial callosotomy), a 20-year-old right hand dominant was (to his great surprise) the discovery that he could use the Caucasian male, was a product of a term pregnancy with a left without difficulty, whereas when presented with emo- difficult high forceps delivery and began having epileptic tional words the right hand suddenly regained its capacity to seizures at age 8 years characterised by staring, write and spell correctly, which led to the present http://jnnp.bmj.com/ unresponsiveness, drooling, and picking at his clothes. These investigation. would last seconds to minutes with 15-30 minutes post-ictal It is important to emphasise that conceptual, intellectual, confusion. PC experienced 9-15 seizures per month. and linguistic functioning was determined (pre-operatively) Preoperative examination indicated that PC performed to be within average limits. The patient was literate, without best with his right hand across all motor-related tasks dysphasic disturbances, and of normal personality. whereas he employed