[A case of metamorphopsia restricted to faces and different familiar objects]. / Etude d'un cas de métamorphopsie limitée aux visages et à certains objets familiers.

The case of a 19-year old patient suffering of transient metamorphopsia restricted to familiar faces and familiar objects is reported. This clinical sign resulted from a small right occipitotemporal haemorrhage due to a sub-cortical metastasis. The patient claimed that faces are distorted and look more pleasant. There were neither visual field defects nor visual agnosia. MRI revealed a small high signal area in the right fusiform gyrus. The structural and functional aspects of the metamorphopsia are documented and discussed in relation to aperceptive prosopagnosia. More specifically, it is suggested that facial metamorphopsia and aperceptive prosopagnosia express the same underlying disorder differing only in terms of severity.

Positron tomography demonstrates frontal lobe hypometabolism in progressive supranuclear palsy.

A regional analysis of cerebral glucose metabolism was carried out in 9 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy by using positron emission tomography with fluorodeoxyglucose as the tracer. A consistent metabolic map of frontal hypometabolism was found in 7 patients. Brain metabolism was normal in 1 subject and diffusely decreased in another. In the 7 patients with selective hypofrontality, motor and premotor areas were severely hypometabolic, while heteromodal association cortex and paralimbic regions were comparatively less affected. Although this pattern of frontal alterations, probably due to disconnection, appeared consistent with the clinical features of the disease, it proved difficult to correlate the metabolic maps with neuropsychological disturbances.

[Anterior choroid artery syndrome with neuropsychological and oculomotor disorders]. / Syndrome de l'artère choroïdienne antérieure avec troubles neuropsychologiques et oculomoteurs.

A patient with infarct in the region of the right anterior choroidal artery presented neuropsychological signs corresponding to a minor hemisphere syndrome and disorders of horizontal oculomotricity similar to those obtained in unilateral parietal-occipital lesions. An anatomic interpretation of the latter finding is attempted.

Anatomical and behavioral study of a case of asymptomatic callosal agenesis.

This paper presents radiological and behavioral observations of a case of asymptomatic congenital agenesis of the corpus callosum. CT scan data indicated that a small portion of the corpus callosum might have been preserved, although this is difficult to demonstrate with the usual criteria. Nuclear magnetic resonance showed the small preserved portion on the sagittal plane. The results of the behavioral studies agree well with already published data: the agenesis of the callosum does not induce a split-brain syndrome but does cause slight motor disturbances, an improvement of the ipsilateral paths of control, and the development of extra-callosal interhemispheric pathways.

A case of prosopagnosia with some preserved covert remembrance of familiar faces.

This paper presents the detailed analysis of a case of prosopagnosia in a 54-year-old male farmer following bioccipital vascular disease. In-depth clinical investigations confirmed the diagnosis of prosopagnosia and revealed the absence of any associated defect, except for a slight aspecific disturbance of the short-term memory. Further study of this case indicated that the trouble was not concerned with the class of complex visual stimuli, was not even concerned with facial expressions or unknown faces, was not a perceptual defect, but was related mainly to the operation of individualization. The memory hypothesis was thus retained and supported. Moreover, exploration of the difficulty indicated that the deficiency was limited to defective access to conscious information concerning faces and information associated with these faces (name, context, etc.), effectively stored in memory.

[Semiology of bismuth encephalopathy. Comparison with seven personal cases (author's transl)]. / Analyse sémiologique de l'encéphalopathie bismuthique. Confrontation avec sept cas personnels.

The authors analyze 99 well-described cases of bismuth encephalopathy and suggest a clinical syndrome according to three stages of the disease (before, during and after the acute period) and three clinical domains (psychiatry, neurology and neuropsychology). A particular attention concerns the presence of sequellar clinical signs (mnesic functions), sometimes observed one year after interruption of bismuth ingestion.

[Pure bilateral agraphia, right astereognosia and arithmetic defects associated with a left parietal tumor (author's transl)]. / Agraphie pure bilatérale, astéréognosie droite et troubles du calcul par lésion tumorale pariétale gauche.

A case of bilateral agraphia produced by a left parietal glioma is described in a 49 year-old right-handed woman. Hypothesis of a pure agraphia, etiology and non-frontal localisation of tumor are discussed. This agraphia is associated to a right astereognosia; neither functional nor behavioral relationships are found between these two defects, and it appears that their are probably associated according to the parietal locus of lesions.

[Transient agraphia due to a left parieto-occipital glioma in a right-handed patient: amnesic or "pure" agraphia? (author's transl)]. / Agraphie transitoire pure ou d'évocation par lésion tumorale pariéto-occipitale gauche chez une droitière.

The authors investigate a case of agraphia induced by a left parieto-occipital tumor (glioma) in a right-handed 67 year-old patient. After three successive neuropsychological examinations it still proves immensely difficult to determine whether defects of spontaneous writing, dictation and copy are due to apraxia, alexia or motor disturbances. The authors discuss whether the clinical findings indicate a "pure agraphia" syndrome or "amnesic agraphia". Finally, problems of aetiology and lesional localisation are examined in the light of the literature. (Acta neurol. belg., 1977, 77, 321-330).

[Neuropsychological aspect of normal pressure hydrocephalus (author's transl)]. / Aspect neuropsychologique de I'hydrocéphalic normopressive

The authors report ten cases of normal pressure hydrocephalus treated by ventricular drainage. They pay particular attention to the neuropsychological and psychometric aspects and endeavour to identify the most characteristic nosological features by comparing their own clinical observations with those reported in the literature.