[Interhemispheric disconnection syndrome with diagonistic dyspraxia in the course of Marchiafava-Bignami disease]

The probable diagnosis of Marchiafava-Bignami disease was made in a chronic alcoholic patient because of the rapid onset of signs of inter-hemisphere disconnection. These inclused left visual and tactile anomia, difficulty of a limb to imitate postures presented in the contralateral visual half-field, constructional apraxia of the right hand, agraphia of the left hand, left auditive extinction in the dichotic test, difficulty in responses of the left limbs to verbal orders, which the authors propose to name left "aphasic apraxia" and a bimanual asynergia, sometimes presenting an aspect of diagonistic dyspraxia. These symptoms clearly show the competence of the left hemisphere for verbal tasks, or more generally, those of an imaginary or conceptual nature, and that of the right hemisphere for visiopatial tasks, or more generally, those required by concrete situations.