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Neuroanatomical Basis in the Temporal Lobes for Processing Living Things

Category-specific impairment in living things was examined in patients with temporal lobe damage to investigate whether specific neuroanatomical regions could be identified in processing the knowledge of specific categories. Tasks involving more effortful retrieval naming and less effortful attribute judgment were administered to 3 groups of patients with either bilateral, unilateral left, or unilateral right temporal lobe damage. Category-specific impairment in living things was observed for patients with unilateral or bilateral damage, results that are consistent with previous findings. Depending on its site and extent, the damage in the temporal lobe might lead to deficits in processing or loss of semantic knowledge for living things. Therefore, intact category-specific semantic processes may involve associations among different neural substrates in the temporal lobe.