Transcript Executive influences on lexical, semantic, and syntactic deficits

Language in Parkinson’s disease:
Executive influences on lexical, semantic, and syntactic deficits
A. M. García
a,b,c,d,
Y. Bocanegra
e,f,
D. Pineda e, O. Buriticá
e,g,
A. Villegas e, F. Lopera e, D. Gómez e, C. Arias f, J. F. Cardona h, N. Trujillo e, A. Ibáñez
a,b,c,i,j
a. LPEN, INECO, U. Favaloro, Bs. As., Argentina. b. CONICET, Bs. As., Argentina. c. NUFIN Core on Neuroscience, UDP, Santiago, Chile. d. FEEyE, UNCuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. e. GRUNECO, U. de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
f. GRUNECO, USB, Medellín, Colombia. g. PTU Hospital, Medellín, Colombia. h. U. del Valle, Cali, Colombia. i. U. Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia. j. CCD, Australian Research Council, New South Wales, Australia.
INTRODUCTION
IMPAIRMENTS IN PD-MCI AND PD-NMCI
Several studies have recently shown that basal ganglia (BG) deterioration, especially in Parkinson’s disease
(PD) leads to distinctive impairments in the domains of syntax (e.g., 1), action verbs (e.g., 2), and action
semantics (e.g., 3) –for a review, see 4. However, several relevant questions remain unanswered. Here we
explore three of them:
(a) is the affectation of these skills domain-specific, or does it depend on executive dysfunction?
(b) is their disturbance equally dissociable from other deficits (viz., processing of object semantics)?
(c)
RESULTS
do such potential relationships vary as cognitive impairment worsens throughout the course of disease?
To address these issues, we administered linguistic, semantic, and executive function tasks to two groups of
non-demented PD patients, with and without mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI and PD-nMCI, respectively).
EFs: PD worse than controls. PD-nMCI and PD-MCI worse than their controls (all ps < .05).
SYNTAX: Impairments in PD-nMCI and PD-MCI. Deficits to identify functional roles within predicates,
independent from EFs. Difficulties in complex-sentence processing, related to their EF deficits.
Deficits predicted by EFs (all ps < .05).
ACTION-VERB PRODUCTION: Impairments in PD-nMCI and PD-MCI, independent from EFs.
Deficits not predicted by EFs (all ps < .05).
ACTION SEMANTICS: Impairments in PD-nMCI and PD-MCI, independent from EFs.
Deficits not predicted by EFs (all ps < .01).
OBJECT SEMANTICS: Impairments in PD-nMCI and PD-MCI.
Greater deficits for PD-MCI, under a partial influence of EF deficits (all ps < .05).
Deficits predicted by EFs (all ps < .01).
METHODS
PARTICIPANTS
Spanish speakers
INSTRUMENTS
INECO Frontal Screening (IFS) battery
Eight tasks to assess medial frontal EFs
Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE)
Touching A with B
Parsing verb phrases to identify role of noun phrases
Figure 1. PD patients vs. controls.
Error bars represent SDs. Significant differences are indicated by * (executive task) and ** (after covariation with EFs).
Graphs show tests’ total scores. (A) IFS. (B) Touching A with B. (C) Embedded sentences. (D) KDT. (E) Action naming. (F) PPT.
Embedded sentences
Complex-sentence comprehension
CONCLUSIONS
Action-naming
Naming actions shown in pictures
Kissing and Dancing Test (KDT)
Action semantics (picture association)
Pyramid and Palm Trees (PPT) test
Object semantics (picture association)
Sample trial from the KDT.
1. Different linguistic and semantic domains are impaired in PD, even in the absence of MCI.
2. Deficits in action naming and action semantics constitute a sui generis disturbance,
whereas impairments of syntax and object semantics are secondary to executive dysfunction.
3. Support for an embodied cognition model in which a BG-cortical network involving a motor circuit
and a semantic circuit proves critical for action-verb processing and for the recruitment of executive
resources underlying processing of syntax and object semantics.
4. Implications for diagnosis and treatment of PD and other neurodegenerative disorders.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
Angwin, A. et al. (2006). Self-paced reading and sentence comprehension in Parkinson’s disease. J Neuroling 19(3), 239-52.
Herrera, E. & F. Cuetos (2012). Action naming in Parkinson’s disease patients on/off dopamine. Neurosci Lett 513(2), 219-22.
Ibáñez, A. et al. (2013). Motor-language coupling: Direct evidence from early Parkinson’s disease and intracranial cortical recordings. Cortex 49(4), 968-84.
García, A. & A. Ibáñez (2014). Words in motion: Motor-language coupling in Parkinson’s disease. Trans Neurosci 5(2), 152-9.
www.fundacionfavaloro.org
Figure 2. Comparison of patients’ subgroups.
www.fundacionineco.org
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Research partially supported by
CONICET,
CONICYT/FONDECYT
Regular
(1130920),
COLCIENCIAS
(1115-545-31374
and
1115-569-33858),
FONCyT-PICT
2012-0412,
FONCyT-PICT 2012-1309, and the INECO Foundation.
www.ineco.org.ar