Right hemispheric dysfunction in a case of pure progressive aphemia: fusion of multimodal neuroimaging

Abstract

This article describes the unusual case of a 60-year-old woman suffering from pure progressive aphemia. The fusion of multimodal neuroimaging (MRI, perfusion SPECT) implicated the right frontal lobe, especially the inferior frontal gyrus. This area also showed the greatest functional MRI activation during the performance of a covert phonemic fluency task. Results are discussed in terms of bihemispheric language representation. The fusion of three sets of neuroimages has aided in the interpretation of the patient's cognitive brain dysfunction.