Gerstmann Meets Geschwind

Abstract

That disconnection causes clinical symptoms is a very influential concept in behavioral neurology. Criteria for subcortical disconnection usually are symptoms that are distinct from those following cortical lesions and damage to a single, long-range fiber tract. Yet, a recent study combining functional magnetic resonance imaging and fiber tracking concluded that a focal lesion in left parietal white matter provides the only tenable explanation for pure Gerstmann’s syndrome, an enigmatic tetrad of acalculia, agraphia, finger agnosia, and left-right disorientation. Such a lesion would affect not only a single fiber tract but crossing or “kissing” of different fiber tracts and hence disconnect separate cortical networks. As fiber crossing is prominent in the cerebral white matter, the authors propose an extension to the subcortical disconnection framework that opens the door to ascribing a more diversified clinical phenomenology to white matter damage and ensuing disconnection than has been the case so far.