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Broca's aphasia

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A peculiar form of central language destruction. Aphasia in which the patient is able to utter only a few simple words and is unable to write, even though he knows what he wishes to say. It is due to lesions in the sypplying area of precentralis causing impairment of expressive speech. The ability to think in abstraction is preserved, but there is a minor difficulty in understanding, resulting in inability to find words that express thought. Some cases are accompanied by hemiplegia due to independent capsular lesions. Extension of the adjacent premotor cortex may cause an associated motor apraxia. This condition differs from other forms of aphasia.

Bibliography

  • P. P. Broca:
    Perte de la parole; ramolissement chronique et destruction partielle du lobe antérieur gauche de cerveau.
    Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris, 1861, 2: 235-238.
  • Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé, suivi d’une observation d’aphémie (perte de la parole). Bulletin de la Société anatomique de Paris, 1861, 36: 330-357.
  • Nouvelle observation d’aphémie produit par une lésion de la moitie posterieure des deuxième et trisième circonvoltion frontales.
    Bulletin de la Société anatomique de Paris, 1861, 36: 398-407.
    Bulletin de la Société anatomique de Paris, 1863, 38: 379-385.

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