Occipital Lobe Infarction and Positron Emission Tomography

Abstract

Even though the PET study revealed a total infarct in the territory of the left PCA in our 3 cases of pure alexia, it is still obscure which part of the left occipital lobe is most closely associated with the occurrence of the pure alexia. In order to elucidate the intralobar localization of the pure alexia, it is needed to have an ideal case who shows an pure alexia due to the localized lesion within the left occipital lobe. Furthermore, high-resolution PET scanner will circumvent the problem in detecting the metabolism and blood flow in the corpus callosum which plays an important role in the pathogenesis. We have shown that the occlusion of the right PCA also produced a left unilateral agnosia which is one of the common neurological signs in the right MCA infarction. To tell whether the responsible lesion for the unilateral spatial agnosia differs between the PCA occlusion and the MCA occlusion, the correlation study should be carried out in a greater number of the subjects. Two distinctive neuropsychological manifestations, cerebral color blindness and prosopagnosia, have been considered to be produced by the bilateral occipital lesion. The PET studies disclosed reduction of blood flow and oxygen metabolism in both occipital lobes in our particular patient who exhibited cerebral color blindness and prosopagnosia.