Aphasia with nonhemorrhagic lesions in the basal ganglia and internal capsule

Atypical aphasia syndromes were associated with circumscribed nonhemorrhagic infarctions of the anterior limb of the internal capsule and of the striatum, in the dominant hemisphere. None of the several cases could be classified in terms of the classic cortical aphasia syndromes, nor did they correspond to the description of aphasia produced by hemorrhage in the thalamus or putamen. Control subjects without aphasia had lesions in the same structures of the nondominant hemisphere, or they had comparably circumscribed damage, which was located lateral or caudal to the previously indicated locus. The findings raise the question of participation of the dominant striatum, and of the connectional systems that course in the anterior limb of the internal capsule, in language processing.