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Brain Advance Access published online on January 24, 2007
Brain, doi:10.1093/brain/awl344
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© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Temporal lobe lesions and semantic impairment: a comparison of herpes simplex virus encephalitis and semantic dementia

Uta Noppeney1,5, Karalyn Patterson3, Lorraine K. Tyler4, Helen Moss4, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis4, Peter Bright4, Cath Mummery2 and Cathy J. Price1

1Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, 2National Hospital for Neurology, Institute of Neurology, London, 3MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 4Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK and 5Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany

Correspondence to: U. Noppeney, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstr. 38, 72076 Tubingen, Germany E-mail: uta.noppeney{at}tuebingen.mpg.de

Both herpes simplex virus encephalitis (HSVE) and semantic dementia (SD) typically affect anterior temporal lobe structures. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), this study compared the structural damage in four HSVE patients having a semantic deficit particularly affecting knowledge of living things and six SD patients with semantic impairment across all categories tested. Each patient was assessed relative to a group of control subjects. In both patient groups, left anterior temporal damage extended into the amygdala. In patients with HSVE, extensive grey matter loss was observed predominantly in the medial parts of the anterior temporal cortices bilaterally in SD patients the abnormalities extended more laterally and posteriorly in either the left, right or both temporal lobes. Based on a lesion deficit rationale and converging results from several other sources of evidence, we suggest that (i) antero-medial temporal cortex may be important for processing and differentiating between concepts that are ‘tightly packed’ in semantic space, such as living things, whereas (ii) inferolateral temporal cortex may play a more general role within the semantic system.

Key Words: structural imaging; brain behaviour and relationships; lesion studies; semantic memory; semantic memory disorders

Abbreviations: HSVE, herpes simplex virus encephaltits; SD, semantic dementia; VBM, voxel-based morphometry

Received June 23, 2006. Revised November 6, 2006. Accepted November 13, 2006.


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