Adult crossed aphasia in dextrals revisited.

The clinical study of crossed aphasia in dextrals (CAD) may shed light on the discreteness and modularity of several cognitive functions, such as language, gestures and visual spatial abilities, with respect to hemispheric lateralisation. Since 1975 over 180 cases have been described, employing, however, different criteria of assessment and classification. The purpose of this paper is to review them and to propose a set of diagnostic criteria that may be useful to single out a series of reliable CAD cases on which research can be safely carried out.

Music agnosia and auditory agnosia. Dissociations in stroke patients.

A review and an experimental study were carried out in search of dissociations between the recognition of music (music agnosia) and that of environmental sounds (auditory agnosia) in stroke patients. The review focused on 45 adequately studied cases published since 1883. The experimental study consisted of administering standard tests of music and environmental sound recognition to 40 unselected patients with unilateral stroke.

Inherited thrombophilic disorders in young adults with ischemic stroke and patent foramen ovale.

Background And Purpose: The pathogenic link between patent foramen ovale (PFO) and stroke remains unknown in most cases. We investigated the association between inherited thrombophilic disorders and PFO-related strokes in a series of young adults in the setting of a case-control study.

Methods: We investigated 125 consecutive subjects (age, 34.

Jugular valve incompetence: a study using air contrast ultrasonography on a general population.

Objective: Internal jugular valves are the only venous valves between the heart and the brain. Conditions such as coughing and other precipitating activities may result in retrograde cerebral venous flow because of the absence or presence of internal jugular valve incompetence, allowing brief transmission of high venous pressure and resulting in brain disturbance. Knowledge of these valves and their noninvasive evaluation might be useful in clinical practice.

Plasma homocysteine concentration, C677T MTHFR genotype, and 844ins68bp CBS genotype in young adults with spontaneous cervical artery dissection and atherothrombotic stroke.

Background And Purpose: The role of mild hyperhomocysteinemia as a risk factor for cerebral ischemia may depend on stroke subtype. To test this hypothesis, we undertook a prospective case-control study of a group of patients with spontaneous cervical artery dissection (sCAD), a group of patients with atherothrombotic stroke (non-CAD), and a group of control subjects.

Methods: Fasting total plasma homocysteine (tHcy) concentration, C677T MTHFR genotype, and 844ins68bp CBS genotype were determined in 25 patients with sCAD, 31 patients <45 years of age with non-CAD ischemic stroke, and 36 control subjects.

Thalamic infarcts in young adults: relationship between clinical-topographic features and pathogenesis.

Background: Most reports on thalamic infarcts have focused on clinicoanatomical correlations while the mechanisms of stroke have rarely been investigated. Moreover, most series have included mainly elderly stroke patients, whereas scarce information is available about the etiology of thalamic infarcts in the young.

Objective: To investigate the mechanisms of thalamic infarcts according to vascular territory in a series of young adults.