The present study was designed to examine the underlying brain mechanisms of positive and negative emotional verbal fluency. Three verbal fluency tasks (one non-emotional phonemic task, two emotional tasks: Joy and Fear) were used in this study. The results were analyzed for 35 healthy, Polish-speaking, right-handed adults aged 20-35. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (3T) was used to show brain activity during active participation in emotional verbal fluency tasks. The results reported for emotional fluency confirmed activation of different brain regions for the negative and positive emotional verbal fluency: in positive emotional verbal fluency Joy elicits greater activation in the frontal regions and the cingulate cortex, while in negative verbal fluency Fear is reflected in activation of parietal and temporal areas. The study provides an evidence for differentiation in neural mechanisms between positive and negative emotional verbal fluency and/or positive and negative retrieving processes, and differentiation in brain-related determinants of the emotional concepts organization.
Pure alexia refers to a rare acquired reading disorder commonly associated with damage to the posterior part of the left medial occipito-temporal (fusiform) gyrus, which is known as the visual word-form area (VWFA) and thought to be the neural basis for visual processing of letters and words. Right-sided lesions very rarely lead to pure alexia in right-handed individuals. We report a case of a 33-year-old right-handed man with isolated pure alexia resulting from a hemorrhagic lesion to the right fusiform gyrus. A limited recovery of reading skills was observed within six weeks post onset. During this period, the patient spontaneously developed a letter-by-letter reading strategy. Functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed right-hemisphere dominance for language as well as bilateral reading-related activity in the fusiform gyri. Our case indicates that pure alexia may arise as a consequence of damage to the right fusiform gyrus even in right-handed patients (who still may have right hemisphere dominance for language and reading skills), and may lead to a severe reading disorder, as in individuals with left-hemisphere dominance for language.
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