What letters can "learn" from Arabic digits--fMRI-controlled single case therapy study of peripheral agraphia

Abstract

Research on (hand-)writing has revealed that Exner's area subserves transferring linguistic impulses into writing programmes. We report on a patient with a lesion affecting Broca's and Exner's area suffering from severe peripheral agraphia for letters but not for Arabic digits. Analogous to semantic (magnitude) information in numbers, we developed a specifically tailored writing training: additional mental imagery based semantic information was attached to letters. The training resulted in significant improvements. Imaging data revealed stronger fronto-parietal network activity including perilesional activation around Exner's area and precuneus for writing letters to dictation than for writing letters corresponding to their mental image expressions. Follow-up testing showed not only stable training effects but also an activation shift into the left angular gyrus. Results document neuronal correlates of a successful intervention by attaching additional meanings to letters in order to retrieve their grapho-motor patterns. These findings contribute to understanding the impact of Exner's area.

Keywords: Peripheral agraphia; Stroke; Therapy; fMRI.