two most important pieces of the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus, opercular and triangular parts are liable to be dropped out from the entire horizontal slice at the level of Sylvian fissure because they are not connected with the rest of the brain. My speculation is that Pierre Marie, in his routine laboratory works, made his assistants to cut the brains, but they did not pay enough attention to these 2 small pieces of brain inevitably detached from the rest of the brain slice.
Dejerine’s Error in Identifying Triangular Part
Similar error of identification of the easily detached small pieces of Broca’s area was also seen in Figure 225 of Dejerine’s “Anatomie de Centres Nerveux, Tome 1” [8]. The figure (Fig. 5) is a horizontal slice of normal brain and clearly shows two small pieces within the Sylvian fissure. Dejerine identified the posterior piece as Rolandic operculum and the anterior piece as frontal operculum, and the deep fissure between these two pieces as frontal opercular incisure, but the truth is that this deep fissure is ascending ramus of Sylvian fissure and the anterior piece which Dejerine identified as frontal operculum is actually the triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus. Due to this misidentification of the ascending ramus of Sylvian fissure, Dejerine noted erroneously the above-mentioned anterior piece of brain as the opercular part and the cerebral gyrus situated anterior to this fissure as the triangular part (cap de la troisième circonvolution), but his anatomical identification was incorrect (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Dejerine’s error in identifying the triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus (corrected anatomical names are given with arrows; modified from [8]).
Consequently, as to the identification of triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus including Area 45 of Brodmann in the horizontal brain slice, Dejerine shared the same error with Marie. As shown above, Marie showed in his first paper [1] a case of his own who had no language impairment in spite of a lesion on the Broca’s area. The site of the lesion of this case was erroneously located on the triangular part by Marie, and the real site of the lesion was on the anterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus, probably Area 46 of Brodmann. Dejerine did not point out the misidentification of the site of the lesion of this case, since he had made the same error of identification of triangular part in the horizontal brain slice [8]. It seems rather very strange that both the experts in clinicopathological studies of aphasia had shared the same mistake. Marie’s papers finally elicited the famous aphasia debate in 1908, but the problem of incorrect location of the Broca’s area, especially of Area 45, was never discussed either by Marie or by Dejerine, because not only Marie but also Dejerine had made the same error in identifying Area 45 of the Broca’s area in the horizontal brain slice.
References
1Marie P: Révision de la question de l’aphasie. La troisième circonvolution frontale gauche ne joue aucun role spécial dans la function du langage. Semeine Médicale du 23 mai 1906. (Marie P: Travaux et Memoires, Tome 1, Paris, Masson et Cie, 1926, pp 3–30).
2Marie P: Que fault-il penser des aphasies sous-corticales (apahsies pures)? Semaine Médicale du 17 octobre 1906. (Marie P: Travaux et Memoires, Tome 1, Paris, Masson et Cie, 1926, pp 31–64).
3Marie P: L’apahsie de 1861 á 1866. Essai de critique historique sur la génèse de la doctrine de Broca. Semaine Médicale du 28 novembre 1906. (Marie P: Travaux et Memoires, Tome 1, Paris, Masson et Cie, 1926, pp 65–92).
4Matsui T, Hirano A: An Atlas of the Human Brain for computerized Tomography. Tokyo-New York, Igaku-Shoin, 1978, p 153.
5Iwata M: CT anatomy of aphasia. Progress in CT 1884;6:133–137. (in Japanese)
6Iwata M: CT anatomy of the frontal lobe, especially in relation with language function. Seishin-Igaku 1895;27:619–624. (in Japanese)
7Bailey P: Pierre Marie (1853–1940); in Haymaker W, Schiller F (eds): The Founders of Neurology, ed 2. Springfield, IL, C. C Thomas, 1970, pp 476–479.
8Dejerine J: Anatomie des Centres Nerveux Tome 1. Paris, Rueff et Cie, 1895, pp 404–405.
Makoto Iwata
Tokyo Women’s Medical University
4-46-19, Hikawadai, Nerima-ku
Tokyo 179-0084 (Japan)
E-Mail iwata.makoto @ twmu.ac.jp
Bogousslavsky J, Boller F, Iwata M (eds): A History of Neuropsychology.
Front Neurol Neurosci. Basel, Karger, 2019, vol 44, pp 30–38 (DOI: 10.1159/000494950)
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Gogi (Word Meaning) Aphasia and Its Relation with Semantic Dementia
Yamadori Atsushi
Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan
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Abstract
In 1943, Tsuneo Imura, a neuropsychiatrist at Tokyo University, proposed a new aphasic syndrome and designated it as Gogi (word meaning) aphasia. According to Imura, it is characterized by (1) difficulty in comprehending spoken words despite good perception of sound, (2) disorders of expression due to loss of vocabulary and verbal paraphasia, (3) preserved ability of repetition, and (4) selective difficulty in reading and writing kanji (Japanese logographic character) with preserved ability of reading and writing kana (Japanese syllabic character). To be more specific, the difficulty in comprehending spoken words in Gogi aphasia is limited to substantive words as the name of the syndrome indicates, while comprehension of syntax remains unimpaired. Preserved repetition ability cannot be simply regarded as an automatic response, that is, echolalia, because the patient’s attitude in repeating was quizzical, picking up the particular word he did not comprehend. Imura vaguely attributed the responsible lesion to the second and third temporal gyri on the left side. Although the general pattern of the syndrome can be placed in the category of transcortical sensory aphasia, its uniqueness as the syndrome still stands out. Another uniqueness of the syndrome is its characteristic pattern of dissociated kanji-kana difficulty in reading and writing. This linguistic symptomatology observed in Gogi aphasia was first introduced to the western academic world on a German neuropsychiatric journal by Panse and Shimoyama
