Anomia for people's names after left anterior temporal lobe resection--case report

A 47-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with an intrinsic brain tumor in the left anterior temporal lobe. Preoperative sodium thiopental test demonstrated left hemispheric dominance. Awake craniotomy was performed for dominant-hemispheric tumor resection using language mapping to identify the stimulation-induced positive language area. The tasks of object naming and repetition were used, along with specific tests for famous people's names. The language area was detected on the superior temporal gyrus and preserved. Following surgery, this patient was unable to retrieve the names of famous individuals (i.e. anomia for people's name) despite preservation of semantic knowledge for those individuals. This anomia for people's names showed no improvement at all for a period of 15 months. This case report and other sporadic cases with this type of deficit reveal the left anterior temporal lobe is an important brain area for retrieving people's names.