Loss of speech comprehension following injury of the  
midbrain auditory nuclei:
Case reports of loss of
speech comprehension
following bilateral injury of the
inferior colliculi in the
midbrain auditory pathway:

  1. Pan CL et al. (2004) Auditory
    agnosia caused by a tectal
    germinoma. Neurology.  2004 Dec
    28;63(12):2387-9.  Comment:
    Neurology 2005 Jul 26;65(2):339;
    author reply 339.
  2. Kimiskidis VK et al. (2004)
    Sensorineural hearing loss and
    word deafness caused by a
    mesencephalic lesion:
    clinicoelectrophysiologic
    correlations. Otol Neurotol. 2004
    Mar;25(2):178-82.
  3. Musiek FE et al (2004) Central
    deafness associated with a
    midbrain lesion. J Am Acad
    Audiol 2004 feb; 15(2):133-151.
  4. Hoistad DL, Hain TC (2003)
    Central hearing loss with a
    bilateral inferior colliculus lesion.
    Audiol Neurootol 2003 Mar-Apr; 8
    (2):111-223.
  5. Vitte E et al. (2002) Midbrain
    deafness with normal brainstem
    auditory evoked potentials.
    Neurology 2002;58:970–973.
  6. Masuda S et al. (2000) Word
    deafness after resection of a
    pineal body tumor in the
    presence of normal wave
    latencies of the auditory brain
    stem response. The Annals of
    otology, rhinology, and
    laryngology. 2000 Dec;109(12 Pt
    1):1107-12.
  7. Johkura K et al. (1998) Defective
    auditory recognition after small
    hemorrhage in the inferior
    colliculi. Journal of the
    Neurological Sciences. 161:91-6.
  8. Meyer B et al. (1996) Pure word
    deafness after resection of a
    tectal plate glioma with
    preservation of wave V of brain
    stem auditory evoked potentials.
    Journal of Neurology,
    Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 61:
    423-4. (no online abstract)
  9. Howe JR, Miller CA (1975)
    Midbrain deafness following head
    injury. Neurology. 1975 Mar;25(3):
    286-9.
Injury in a skiing accident resulted in a "punctate
hematoma" affecting the inferior colliculi bilaterally
(top).  Compare with the normal appearance of the
inferior colliculi (bottom).  From Johkura et al. 1998.

The skier, whose MRI is shown here, was one of the
nine cases in which comprehension of spoken
language was lost following bilateral injury of the
inferior colliculi (follow links to abstracts, right).

Impact from the free edge of the cerebellar tentorium
was thought to have caused the skier's injury.

How much more serious such an
injury would be for an infant, who
has not yet begun to speak!


The inferior colliculi may play a
special role in analysis of the
acoustic features of speech.
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