A case of foreign accent syndrome without aphasia caused by a lesion of the left precentral gyrus

Abstract

We report a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS) without aphasia. The patient was a right-handed, 44-year-old woman, a native Japanese. Disposition and inversion of pitch accents and appearance of unnecessary stress accents made her speech sound foreign, like that of a Korean. MRI demonstrated an infarction in the middle fifth of the posterior lateral aspect of the left precentral gyrus. Limited motor cortex damage causes FAS without dysarthria, apraxia of speech, or aphasia.