The neural underpinnings of conceptual knowledge have been studied intensively, but many unanswered questions remain. In a previous study examining recognition of persons, animals, and tools in 116 participants with unilateral brain lesions, we found no instance of a patient who manifested defective recognition in all three categories. We reasoned that the spatial distribution of the lesion loci critical for the appearance of recognition defects for these different categories explained why this 'three-way' defect could not be found in patients with unilateral lesions, and we proposed that only a suitable bilateral lesion would be likely to produce such a combined defect. In the study reported here, we tested this hypothesis by investigating recognition performances in 55 participants with bilateral cortical lesions. In support of the hypothesis, nine patients, all of whose lesions included bilateral occipitotemporal and/or temporal cortices, had a three-way recognition impairment (persons, M = 18.3%; animals, M = 35.7%; tools, M = 71.3%; all scores >2 SDs below normal). As expected, bilateral lesions to other neural sectors, for example prefrontal cortices, did not lead to recognition impairments. These findings provide further support for the notion that retrieval of knowledge for concrete entities from different conceptual categories depends on partially segregated neural systems, located in different sectors of occipitotemporal and temporal regions in right and left hemisphere.

中文翻译：

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进一步的病变证据为人和其他具体实体提供了概念知识的神经基础。

对概念知识的神经基础进行了深入研究，但仍然存在许多未解决的问题。在先前的一项研究中，对116名单侧脑损伤参与者中的人，动物和工具的识别进行了研究，我们没有发现在所有这三个类别中均表现出识别缺陷的患者。我们认为，对于这些不同类别的识别缺陷的出现而言，病灶位点的空间分布至关重要，这解释了为什么在单侧病灶的患者中找不到这种“三向”缺陷的原因，因此我们建议仅选择合适的双侧病灶可能会产生这样的综合缺陷。在这里报道的研究中，我们通过调查55名双侧皮质病变参与者的识别表现来检验了这一假设。为了支持这一假设，九名患者的病变全部包括双侧枕颞叶和/或颞叶皮质，三者均出现了识别障碍（人，M = 18.3％；动物，M = 35.7％；工具，M = 71.3％ ；所有分数均比正常低2个标准差）。不出所料，其他神经部分（例如前额叶皮层）的双侧病变并未导致识别障碍。这些发现为以下观点提供了进一步的支持：从不同概念类别中检索具体实体的知识取决于部分隔离的神经系统，该系统位于左右半球枕颞和颞区的不同区域。M = 35.7％；工具，M = 71.3％；所有分数均比正常低2个标准差）。不出所料，其他神经系统（例如前额叶皮层）的双侧病变并未导致识别障碍。这些发现为以下观点提供了进一步的支持：从不同概念类别中检索具体实体的知识取决于部分隔离的神经系统，该系统位于左右半球枕颞和颞区的不同区域。M = 35.7％；工具，M = 71.3％；所有分数均低于正常水平> 2 SD。不出所料，其他神经系统（例如前额叶皮层）的双侧病变并未导致识别障碍。这些发现为以下观点提供了进一步的支持：从不同概念类别中检索具体实体的知识取决于部分隔离的神经系统，该系统位于左右半球枕颞和颞区的不同区域。