Rethinking the Neural Basis of Prosody and Non-literal Language: Spared Pragmatics and Cognitive Compensation in a Bilingual With Extensive Right-Hemisphere Damage.

Above and beyond the critical contributions of left perisylvian regions to language, the neural networks supporting pragmatic aspects of verbal communication in native and non-native languages (L1s and L2, respectively) have often been ascribed to the right hemisphere (RH). However, several reports have shown that left-hemisphere activity associated with pragmatic domains (e.g., prosody, indirect speech, figurative language) is comparable to or even greater than that observed in the RH, challenging the proposed putative role of the latter for relevant domains. Against this background, we report on an adult bilingual patient showing preservation of pragmatic verbal skills in both languages (L1: Spanish, L2: English) despite bilateral damage mainly focused on the RH. After two strokes, the patient sustained lesions in several regions previously implicated in pragmatic functions (vast portions of the right fronto-insulo-temporal cortices, the bilateral amygdalae and insular cortices, and the left putamen). Yet, comparison of linguistic and pragmatic skills with matched controls revealed spared performance on multiple relevant tasks in both her L1 and L2. Despite mild difficulties in some aspects of L2 prosody, she showed no deficits in comprehending metaphors and idioms, or understanding indirect speech acts in either language. Basic verbal skills were also preserved in both languages, including verbal auditory discrimination, repetition of words and pseudo-words, cognate processing, grammaticality judgments, equivalent recognition, and word and sentence translation. Taken together, the evidence shows that multiple functions of verbal communication can be widely spared despite extensive damage to the RH, and that claims for a putative relation between pragmatics and the RH may have been overemphasized in the monolingual and bilingual literature. We further discuss the case in light of previous reports of pragmatic and linguistic deficits following brain lesions and address its relation to cognitive compensation in bilingual patients.

Progressive Compromise of Nouns and Action Verbs in Posterior Cortical Atrophy.

Processing of nouns and action verbs can be differentially compromised following lesions to posterior and anterior/motor brain regions, respectively. However, little is known about how these deficits progress in the course of neurodegeneration. To address this issue, we assessed productive lexical skills in a patient with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) at two different stages of his pathology. On both occasions, he underwent a structural brain imaging protocol and completed semantic fluency tasks requiring retrieval of animals (nouns) and actions (verbs). Imaging results were compared with those of controls via voxel-based morphometry (VBM), whereas fluency performance was compared to age-matched norms through Crawford's t-tests. In the first assessment, the patient exhibited atrophy of more posterior regions supporting multimodal semantics (medial temporal and lingual gyri), together with a selective deficit in noun fluency. Then, by the second assessment, the patient's atrophy had progressed mainly toward fronto-motor regions (rolandic operculum, inferior and superior frontal gyri) and subcortical motor hubs (cerebellum, thalamus), and his fluency impairments had extended to action verbs. These results offer unprecedented evidence of the specificity of the pathways related to noun and action-verb impairments in the course of neurodegeneration, highlighting the latter's critical dependence on damage to regions supporting motor functions, as opposed to multimodal semantic processes.