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Many authors hypothesized a linkage between the anatomical region of damage and the nature of constructional apraxia. In particular, the functional impairment of right brain damaged patients should consist in a visuo-spatial defect. However a large amount of researches have showed impaired visuo-spatial abilities in apraxic subjects respect to non-apraxics, but independently by the side of brain damage. In these researches constructional and visuo-spatial abilities have been often evaluated by methods not comparable among them. Aim of this paper is to verify the constructional performances of left and right brain damaged patients, utilizing exclusively the copy of geometric figures and tasks considered specific in detecting visuo-spatial disabilities. The experimental results show that both left and right brain lesions produce impairments of visuo-spatial abilities. Lastly, the utility of a cognitive approach of study is discussed.

This study of a dyslexic patient supports the view that the level of impairment of the phonological route plays a role in the production of semantic paralexias. The patient's reading was based on a defective phoneme-to-grapheme transcoding, in spite of evidence that semantic information was available through non phonological routes. The hypothesis that the residual ability to carry out phonological recoding could block the production of semantic paralexias was confirmed by tachistoscopic reading, assumed to interfere with phonological recoding in this patient, that provoked a definite rise of this type of error. The relationship between the degree of damage of phonological route and the clinical expression of the syndromes of phonological dyslexia and deep dyslexia is also discussed.

This overview deals with the neuropsychology of memory. First cognitive models proposed for primary and secondary memory are reported, particularly the working memory theory and episodic/semantic distinction are discussed. Briefly the modern point of view about the anatomical bases of memory functions are reported with stressing above all the role of limbic structures. Lastly the pathology of both primary and secondary memory is dealt with, trying to abstract the clinical features of different syndromes.

We report a case of a 36-year-old right-handed woman, who, in the 40th week of her first pregnancy, presented light coma which lasted 6 days. When the patient came out of coma she presented very marked oral tendency and hypermetamorphosis resembling the Kluver-Bucy syndrome in man. As sustained in the literature, the lesion showed by CT scan was bilateral and involved mainly the limbic structures in baso-temporal sites. The patient is compared to other cases described in literature.