Visual agnosia and amnesia from a left unilateral lesion

This case report describes the behavior of a patient with a visual agnosia of the associative type, developing to optic agnosia at a later stage. Language, general intelligence and right hemisphere functions were well preserved, but recognition of visually presented objects, colors, faces, words, and complex stimuli was impaired. Agnosia was accompanied by a multimodal amnestic syndrome. CT displayed a focal left hemisphere lesion. The observed pathomorphology is not consistent with a bilateral visuolimbic disconnection syndrome, as suggested from previous case studies. Significant components of visual semantic processing may be executed by the left hemisphere.