[In the boundaries of aphasia]

The anatomical boundaries of those structures whose lesion leads to the disturbances of language are indistintic and largely exceed the classical "areas of language", including subcortical structures as the thalamus and the non-dominant hemisphere. It is equally indistinct the possibility of definition of aphasic disturbances. On one hand aphasia can be seen within the realm of decodification, as a failure of a mental rather than of a verbal process, close to dementia, while among the codification mechanisms motor aphasia can appear a syndrome of phonetic desintegration with component of apraxic, dystonic and paretic nature. Esquizophasia and agrammatism are two examples of those peculiar disturbances of language. The correlation between disturbances of language and of intelligence is another frontier of aphasies where a causal relationship appears to be well established. Aphasias, interpreted in the beginnings as anatomically localized well defined disturbances of function, are now seen both anatomically and functionally, as a process with indistinct and mixed boundarie related to other equally illimited and indistinct functions.