Apraxia in acute stroke patients: Pantomime and imitation rely on partly separated brain networks

Introduction: Apraxia, a cognitive disorder of skilled movements, characteristically affects the ability to correctly pantomime the use of tools or imitate meaningless gestures. Apraxia occurs frequently after left hemisphere strokes. However, given inconsistent results of past studies, the exact localization of lesions that may lead to apraxia is still debated. Discrepancies may partly be caused by different stages of recovery, as to the best of our knowledge, all previous studies included only patients in the subacute or chronic phases after stroke. Here, we present data from 85 consecutive stroke patients exa…