"Apperceptive" alexia in posterior cortical atrophy

Abstract

The most common presenting complaint in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is reading difficulty. Although often described as an alexia without agraphia, alexia in PCA may have multiple causes, including a primary visuoperceptual etiology, attentional alexia, and central reading difficulty. This study evaluated 14 patients with early PCA and disturbances in reading ability in comparison to 14 normal controls. All 14 patients had a progressive disorder of complex visual functions and neuroimaging evidence of occipitoparietal dysfunction. They underwent a task requiring identification of single letters with and without flanking distractors. They also read single words consisting of regular English spelling or irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondence (irregular words) and pronounceable nonsense words (pseudowords). The PCA patients made errors in letter identification when letters were flanked by visually similar letters or numbers. They could read most single regular and irregular words but made visual errors and had particular trouble with pseudowords. They could not use a letter-by-letter reading strategy effectively. The PCA patients had similar difficulties on other visuoperceptual tests. These findings are consistent with an alexia manifested by perceptual and attentional difficulty on attempting serial visual processing of letters in the context of other letters. This "apperceptive alexia" results when the configuration of letters into words is impaired during letter-by-letter reading. Disproportionate difficulty reading pseudowords suggests an additional impairment in phonological processing. PCA patients have variable neuropathology and individual patients may have other contributions to their reading impairment.