The aprosodias: Further functional-anatomical evidence for the organisation of affective language in the right hemisphere

Fourteen right-handed patients with right hemispheric strokes were examined for disorders of affective language in order to further define the clinical-anatomical correlates of the aprosodias. A bedside evaluation strategy and CT scan mappings were utilised to make these comparisons. There were six patients with motor aprosodia, one with global aprosodia, two with conduction aprosodia, one with sensory aprosodia, one with transcortical sensory aprosodia, one with pure affective deafness and two with normal examinations of affect. Functional-anatomical correlations were consistent with those predicted previously. Recovery of affective language function in selected cases was characterised by improvements in affective-prosodic repetition and/or evolution into other aprosodic subtypes. Our results lend further support to the hypothesis that the organisation of affective language in the right hemisphere mirrors that of propositional language in the left hemisphere.