Category specific naming impairment was described mainly after cortical lesions. It is thought to result from a lesion in a specific network, reflecting the organization of our semantic knowledge. The deficit usually involves multiple semantic categories whose profile of naming deficit generally obeys the animate/inanimate dichotomy. Thalamic lesions cause general semantic naming deficit, and only rarely a category specific semantic deficit for very limited and highly specific categories. We performed a case-control study on a 56-year-old right-handed man who presented with language impairment following a left anterior thalamic infarction. His naming ability and semantic knowledge were evaluated in the visual, tactile and auditory modalities for stimuli from 11 different categories, and compared to that of five controls. In naming to visual stimuli the patient performed poorly (error rate>50

作者：Netta, Levin；Tamir, Ben-Hur；Iftah, Biran；Eli, Wertman

来源：Neuropsychologia 2005 年 43卷 9期