Incidence and Symptomatology of Vascular Crossed Aphasia in Bengali

Crossed aphasia (CA) refers to aphasia following a right-hemispheric lesion in right-handed individuals. It has been suggested that the prevalence of CA differs with language, although its worldwide incidence, as reported by most studies, is less than 3%.

To find the incidence of CA in the Bengali language.

From 2016 to 2018, in a hospital located in a Bengali-speaking area of eastern India, 515 cases of first-ever stroke were documented, out of which 208 patients presented with aphasia (40.38%) according to their scores on the Bengali version of the Western Aphasia Battery.

Among the patients with aphasia, 14 (6.73%; 8 men and 6 women) presented with CA. Of these, 10 were diagnosed with Broca aphasia and four with transcortical motor aphasia. No patient presented with Wernicke aphasia.

The relatively high incidence of CA in our study suggests that bi-hemispheric language representation may be more prevalent in Bengali speakers than in speakers of other languages. The absence of crossed Wernicke aphasia in our study participants may represent a left-hemispheric advantage for receptive language abilities in Bengali speakers. Further studies are required to clarify whether idiosyncrasies in the Bengali language may be responsible for the differential brain representation of language seen in our study participants.