Impairment of language is related to left parieto-temporal glucose metabolism in aphasic stroke patients.

Twenty-six aphasic patients who had an ischaemic infarct in the territory of the left middle cerebral artery (MCA) were investigated. Cranial computed tomography (CT) showed various lesion sites: infarcts restricted to cortical structures in 12 patients, combined cortical and subcortical infarcts in 7 and isolated subcortical infarcts sparing the left cortex in another 7 cases. 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography revealed remote hypometabolism of the left convexity cortex and of the left basal ganglia, which was extended further than the morphological infarct zone in all cases. Types and degrees of aphasia were classified using the Aachener Aphasie Test (AAT): 10 patients had global aphasia, 2 Broca's, 5 Wernicke's, and 5 amnesic aphasia. Four patients suffered from minimal or residual aphasic symptoms. The AAT results were compared with the regional cerebral metabolic rates of glucose of the left hemisphere. Irrespective of the infarct location all five AAT subtests (Token test, repetition, written language, confrontation naming, auditory and reading comprehension) were closely correlated among each other and with left parieto-temporal metabolic rates, whereas left frontal and left basal ganglia metabolism showed no significant correlation. The close relation between left temporo-parietal functional activity and all five AAT subtests suggests that the different aspects of aphasia tested by AAT can be related to a common disorder of language processing in those areas.