Abstract
We reported a case of “Broca's aphasia” without apraxia of speech. The subject was a 41-year-old right-handed man who suffered from a cerebral infarction causing aphasia and right hemiparesis. His MRI revealed a lesion involving subcortical white matter of the Broca's area with posterior extension to the cortical and subcortical areas of the lower part of the post-central gyrus and supramarginal gyrus as well as the superior temporal gyrus, but sparing the lower cortex of the precentral gyrus. He presented neuropsychological symptoms consistent with those of Broca's aphasia as defined by Benson (1979) except for the absence of apraxia of speech. On the other hand, he revealed phonological and syntactic impairments compatible with those of contiguity and sequence, by which Jakobson (1963) characterized Broca's aphasia. His syntactic impairments were also congruent with Berndt et al. (1980) 's definition of Broca's aphasia. The existence of this case of “Broca's aphasia” without apraxia of speech, coupled with the existence of cases with pure apraxia of speech, demonstrates a double dissociation of speech output deficit and linguistic deficit, which are components of so-called Broca's aphasia.
