Two cases of pontocerebellar hypoplasia: ethical and prenatal diagnostic dilemma.

We report the clinical characteristics and the outcome of two cases of pontocerebellar hypoplasia (PCH) in one family. The objective of this report is to describe the mode of presentation, discuss the clinical course, and address the dilemma of prenatal diagnosis and the prospects for genetic diagnosis for PCH. The first case is a 4-year-old boy in whom the diagnosis was made in the neonatal period.

Overt propositional speech in chronic nonfluent aphasia studied with the dynamic susceptibility contrast fMRI method.

This study examined activation levels in the left (L) supplementary motor area (SMA) and the right (R) SMA (separately), and activation in nine R perisylvian language homologues during overt, propositional speech in chronic nonfluent aphasia patients. Previous functional imaging studies with a variety of chronic aphasia patients have reported activation in these regions during different language tasks, however, overt propositional speech has not been examined. In the present research, four nonfluent aphasia patients were studied during overt elicited propositional speech at 4-9 years post-single L hemisphere stroke, which spared the SMA.