Abstract
Extrapontine myelinolysis and pure word deafness are very uncommon disorders. Here, we report a case of a 19-year-old woman who suffered from osmotic demyelination syndrome with coincidence of typical pure word deafness. As a consequence of rapid correction of hyponatremia, the patient demonstrated an initial onset of cortical deafness, and then progressed to generalized auditory agnosia, which eventually developed into confined verbal auditory agnosia (pure word deafness). Bilateral extrapontine myelinolysis was confirmed using brain magnetic resonance imaging. This case suggests that verbal and nonverbal stimuli may involve separate thalamocortical pathways.
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Project supported by the Science Research Foundation of the Ministry of Health of China (No. WKJ2010-2-009), the Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province (No. 2007C33007), the Key Project of Education Department of Zhejiang Province (No. Z2008 05185), and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (No. Y2080132), China
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Zhu, Rj., Lv, Zs., Shan, Cl. et al. Pure word deafness associated with extrapontine myelinolysis. J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. B 11, 842–847 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1000200
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1000200
Key words
- Pure word deafness
- Auditory agnosia
- Osmotic demyelination syndrome
- Extrapontine myelinolysis
- Cortical deafness