Retrieval of Nouns and Verbs in Broca's and Wernicke's Aphasia

Hyun, Jung Moon; Kim, Hyang Hee; Shin, Ji Chul; Seo, Sang Gyu

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2003;8(3): 171-187.

Jung Moon Hyun^` , Hyang Hee Kim^` , Ji Chul Shin^` , and Sang Gyu Seo^`

현정문(Jung Moon Hyun)| 김향희(Hyang Hee Kim)| 신지철(Ji Chul Shin)| 서상규(Sang Gyu Seo)

ABSTRACT

The objectives of the present study were to ascertain whether verb or noun deficits are associated with a particular type of aphasia and whether they are related with a specific brain lesion site. The results of the study were as follows: (1) The mean naming performance obtained by both Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic groups on verbs was low- er than that on nouns. However, only Broca's aphasics were significantly more impaired on verb than noun namings. In addition, Wernicke's noun naming was significantly poorer than Broca's noun naming. (2) All of the patients with severe noun deficits had lesions in the left middle-inferior temporal lobules, but patients with verb deficits did not reveal common lesions. The results were contrary to the common belief in that verb deficits were not a unique feature for Broca's aphasia. It is noteworthy that all of the patients with noun deficits had lesions essentially involving the left middle-inferior temporal lobule, indicat- ing neuroanatomical correlates of noun processing.