[A case of selective short-term memory disturbance due to a glioma in the left temporo-parietal lobe].

We report a patient with selective short-term memory disturbance caused by a glioma in the left temporal-parietal lobe. The patient was a 40-year-old right-handed housewife who complained of difficulty in memorizing series of numbers. She was working as a car dealer. She was well until 6 months prior to the present admission when she noted a difficulty in memorizing series of numbers such when telephone numbers and car registration numbers. She had to write them down as her customers told them to her. On admission, she was alert and oriented to all spheres. She was mentally sound without dementia. She did not show aphasia, apraxia, or agnosia, except for brief periods of seizures in which she became unable to speech. Neuropsychological examination revealed that she had difficulty in repeating and dictating series of numbers and meaningless kana words. However, she could easily pick up the correct series of numbers or kana words among multiple choices presented visually. Thus it was clear that her problem was not the disturbance of auditory input nor expression, but a selective impairment of short-term memory. She could memorize the same stimuli when visually presented. Therefore, her problem was thought to be a disturbance of auditory short-term memory of meaningless words. After resection of her tumor, she developed transient amnesic aphasia, which improved a year later. She was examined again in her memory function. In the task of visual stimuli, we presented her a card in which a series of numbers or a nonsense syllable was written for 5 seconds and asked her to remember them.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)