Two Cases of Callosal Disconnection Syndrome: Impaired Body Cognition of Nondominant Limbs

ABSTRACT

Callosal disconnection results in the functional independence of each hemisphere and usually produces characteristic signs including alien hand, left-sided apraxia, left agraphia and left tactile anomia. Our two patients; a 75-year-old right-handed woman with hypertension and a 71-year-old right-handed woman with diabetes mellitus, showed impairments in the identification of body parts with their left hands in addition to characteristic symptoms such as left ideomotor apraxia, agraphia, tactile anomia, and right alien hand signs with groping and grasping. Brain MRIs of these patients upon admission demonstrated infarcts in the medial portion of the left frontal lobes and in the corpus callosum supplied by the left anterior cerebral artery. The impairment of body parts cognition in our patients can be attributed to the failure of the patient's left hand to communicate with the body schema stored in the left hemisphere.