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Ding J, Qing Y, Drossinos N, Guo Q. Advances in Semantic Dementia: Neuropsychology, Pathology & Neuroimaging. Ageing Res Rev 2024:102375. [PMID: 38866186 DOI: 10.1016/j.arr.2024.102375] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2023] [Revised: 06/03/2024] [Accepted: 06/04/2024] [Indexed: 06/14/2024]
Abstract
Semantic dementia is a kind of neurodegenerative disorder, characterized by prominent semantic impairments and anterior temporal lobe atrophy. Since 2010, more studies have devoted to this rare disorder, revealing that it is more complex than we think. Clinical advances include more specific findings of semantic impairments and other higher order cognitive deficits. The neuroimaging techniques help revealing different brain hubs of in respective of functional or structural networks. Pathological and genetic studies have also found more complex situations of semantic dementia, which could help explaining the huge variance existing in semantic dementia. Moreover, the current diagnosis criteria mainly focus on semantic dementia's classical prototype. We further delineated the features of three subtypes of semantic dementia based on atrophy lateralization with three severity stages. In a broader background, as a part of the continuum of neurodegenerative disorders, semantic dementia is commonly compared with other resembling conditions. Therefore, we summarized the differential diagnosis between semantic dementia and them. Finally, we introduced the challenges and achievements of its diagnosis, treatment, care and cross cultural comparison. By providing a comprehensive picture of semantic dementia on different aspects of advances, we hope to deepen the understanding of semantic dementia and promote more inspirations on both clinical and theoretical studies about it.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junhua Ding
- Department of Gerontology, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Yang Qing
- Department of Rehabilitation, Hushan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Niki Drossinos
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Qihao Guo
- Department of Gerontology, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
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Magnotti JF, Patterson JS, Schnur TT. Using predictive validity to compare associations between brain damage and behavior. Hum Brain Mapp 2023; 44:4738-4753. [PMID: 37417774 PMCID: PMC10400786 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26413] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2022] [Revised: 05/15/2023] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Lesion-behavior mapping (LBM) provides a statistical map of the association between voxel-wise brain damage and individual differences in behavior. To understand whether two behaviors are mediated by damage to distinct regions, researchers often compare LBM weight outputs by either the Overlap method or the Correlation method. However, these methods lack statistical criteria to determine whether two LBM are distinct versus the same and are disconnected from a major goal of LBMs: predicting behavior from brain damage. Without such criteria, researchers may draw conclusions from numeric differences between LBMs that are irrelevant to predicting behavior. We developed and validated a predictive validity comparison method (PVC) that establishes a statistical criterion for comparing two LBMs using predictive accuracy: two LBMs are distinct if and only if they provide unique predictive power for the behaviors being assessed. We applied PVC to two lesion-behavior stroke data sets, demonstrating its utility for determining when behaviors arise from the same versus different lesion patterns. Using region-of-interest-based simulations derived from proportion damage from a large data set (n = 131), PVC accurately detected when behaviors were mediated by different regions (high sensitivity) versus the same region (high specificity). Both the Overlap method and Correlation method performed poorly on the simulated data. By objectively determining whether two behavioral deficits can be explained by single versus distinct patterns of brain damage, PVC provides a critical advance in establishing the brain bases of behavior. We have developed and released a GUI-driven web app to encourage widespread adoption.
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Affiliation(s)
- John F. Magnotti
- Department of NeurosurgeryBaylor College of MedicineHoustonTexasUSA
- Department of NeurosurgeryPerelman School of Medicine at the University of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaPennsylvaniaUSA
| | | | - Tatiana T. Schnur
- Department of NeurosurgeryBaylor College of MedicineHoustonTexasUSA
- Department of NeuroscienceBaylor College of MedicineHoustonTexasUSA
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Schnur TT, Wang S. Differences in Connected Speech Outcomes Across Elicitation Methods. APHASIOLOGY 2023; 38:816-837. [PMID: 38798958 PMCID: PMC11114736 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2023.2239509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2022] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
Background Connected speech is often used to assess many aspects of an individual's language abilities after stroke. However, it is unknown the degree to which elicitation methods differ in generating structural and syntactic aspects of connected speech, two critical components of successful communication. Quantifying the degree to which elicitation methods differ in eliciting structurally, syntactically, and lexically complex connected speech at the earliest stage of stroke before reorganization and rehabilitation of function independent of clinical diagnosis of aphasia has not been examined to date. Addressing this gap has implications for early clinical intervention as well as empirical studies of connected speech production. Aims We compared two common elicitation methods, picture description and storytelling on lexical, structural, and syntactic measures of connected speech in speakers during the acute stage of left hemisphere stroke. Methods & Procedures We measured connected speech using an automated quantitative production analysis approach (Fromm et al., 2021) in 71 native-English speaking participants (27 female; 59 ± 13 years) within an average 3.9 days from left hemisphere stroke onset. We tested the degree of agreement and consistency between elicitation methods for lexical, structural, and syntactic measures of connected speech, as well as the degree of concordance in classifying deficits across individuals. Outcomes & Results Storytelling elicited significantly more words and more structurally complex, lexically diverse, and syntactically accurate speech in comparison to picture description. Elicitation methods differed in measuring outcomes across participants for the lexical and syntactic, but not structural complexity aspects of connected speech where storytelling classified more participants with impairments in comparison to picture description. Conclusions These differences suggest storytelling provides assessment of connected speech abilities more reflective of real-world abilities where its use is particularly critical for examining individual differences and providing diagnoses of acute stroke language deficits. As a result, using storytelling as a connected speech elicitation method more effectively captures a patient's language capabilities after stroke, consequently informing clinical diagnosis and treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tatiana T. Schnur
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
- Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Sharon Wang
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
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Chen X, Affourtit J, Ryskin R, Regev TI, Norman-Haignere S, Jouravlev O, Malik-Moraleda S, Kean H, Varley R, Fedorenko E. The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in "Broca's area," does not support music perception. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:7904-7929. [PMID: 37005063 PMCID: PMC10505454 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2022] [Revised: 01/02/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some have argued for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing. Such claims often concern the inferior frontal component of the language system located within "Broca's area." However, others have failed to find overlap. Using a robust individual-subject fMRI approach, we examined the responses of language brain regions to music stimuli, and probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across 4 experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music perception does not engage the language system, and judgments about music structure are possible even in the presence of severe damage to the language network. In particular, the language regions' responses to music are generally low, often below the fixation baseline, and never exceed responses elicited by nonmusic auditory conditions, like animal sounds. Furthermore, the language regions are not sensitive to music structure: they show low responses to both intact and structure-scrambled music, and to melodies with vs. without structural violations. Finally, in line with past patient investigations, individuals with aphasia, who cannot judge sentence grammaticality, perform well on melody well-formedness judgments. Thus, the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to process music, including music syntax.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuanyi Chen
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Rice University, TX 77005, United States
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Josef Affourtit
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Rachel Ryskin
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Cognitive & Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA 95343, United States
| | - Tamar I Regev
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Samuel Norman-Haignere
- Department of Biostatistics & Computational Biology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States
| | - Olessia Jouravlev
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Saima Malik-Moraleda
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
| | - Hope Kean
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Rosemary Varley
- Psychology & Language Sciences, UCL, London, WCN1 1PF, United Kingdom
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
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Zahn R, Schnur TT, Martin RC. Contributions of semantic and phonological working memory to narrative language independent of single word production: Evidence from acute stroke. Cogn Neuropsychol 2023; 39:296-324. [PMID: 36927389 DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2023.2186782] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/18/2023]
Abstract
ABSTRACTNeuropsychological case studies have provided evidence that individuals with semantic, but not phonological, working memory (WM) deficits have difficulty producing phrases containing several content words. These findings supported the claim of a phrasal scope of planning at the grammatical formulation stage of production, where semantic WM supports the maintenance of lexical-semantic representations as they are inserted into slots in phrasal constituents. Recent narrative production results for individuals at the acute stage of stroke supported the role for semantic WM in phrasal elaboration while suggesting a role for phonological WM at a subsequent phonological encoding stage in supporting fluent, rapid speech. In the present study, we employed a larger participant sample while controlling for single word production abilities at semantic and phonological levels. Results confirmed the relations between semantic WM and phrasal elaboration whereas the relation between phonological WM and speech rate was eliminated. There was, however, evidence that both impaired phonological retrieval and restricted phonological WM were related to the tendency to produce short, highly frequent words such as pronouns rather than longer, less frequent words. Future research is needed to address whether the results relating to phonological WM depend on damage specific to an output rather than an input phonological capacity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel Zahn
- Psychological Sciences, Rice University, Houston, USA
| | - Tatiana T Schnur
- Neurosurgery and Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA
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Zevgolatakou E, Thye M, Mirman D. Behavioural and neural structure of fluent speech production deficits in aphasia. Brain Commun 2022; 5:fcac327. [PMID: 36601623 PMCID: PMC9798301 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac327] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2021] [Revised: 09/03/2022] [Accepted: 12/12/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Deficits in fluent speech production following left hemisphere stroke are a central concern because of their impact on patients' lives and the insight they provide about the neural organization of language processing. Fluent speech production requires the rapid coordination of phonological, semantic, and syntactic processing, so this study examined how deficits in connected speech relate to these language sub-systems. Behavioural data (N = 69 participants with aphasia following left hemisphere stroke) consisted of a diverse and comprehensive set of narrative speech production measures and measures of overall severity, semantic deficits, and phonological deficits. These measures were entered into a principal component analysis with bifactor rotation-a latent structure model where each item loads on a general factor that reflects what is common among the items, and orthogonal factors that explain variance not accounted for by the general factor. Lesion data were available for 58 of the participants, and each factor score was analysed with multivariate lesion-symptom mapping. Effects of connectivity disruption were evaluated using robust regression with tract disconnection or graph theoretic measures of connectivity as predictors. The principal component analysis produced a four-factor solution that accounted for 70.6% of the variance in the data, with a general factor corresponding to the overall severity and length and complexity of speech output (complexity factor), a lexical syntax factor, and independent factors for Semantics and Phonology. Deficits in the complexity of speech output were associated with a large temporo-parietal region, similar to overall aphasia severity. The lexical syntax factor was associated with damage in a relatively small set of fronto-parietal regions which may reflect the recruitment of control systems to support retrieval and correct usage of lexical items that primarily serve a syntactic rather than semantic function. Tract-based measures of connectivity disruption were not statistically associated with the deficit scores after controlling for overall lesion volume. Language network efficiency and average clustering coefficient within the language network were significantly associated with deficit scores after controlling for overall lesion volume. These results highlight overall severity as the critical contributor to fluent speech in post-stroke aphasia, with a dissociable factor corresponding to lexical syntax.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eleni Zevgolatakou
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
| | - Melissa Thye
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
| | - Daniel Mirman
- Correspondence to: Daniel Mirman Department of Psychology, 7 George Square Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK E-mail:
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Ding J, Schnur TT. Anterior connectivity critical for recovery of connected speech after stroke. Brain Commun 2022; 4:fcac266. [PMID: 36382224 PMCID: PMC9651028 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2022] [Revised: 07/20/2022] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Connected speech recovers to different degrees across people after left hemisphere stroke, but white matter predictors of differential recovery from the acute stage of stroke are unknown. We assessed changes in lexical-syntactic aspects of connected speech in a longitudinal analysis of 40 individuals (18 females) from the acute stage of left hemisphere stroke (within an average of 4 days post-stroke) to subacute (within 2 months) and chronic stages (early: 6 months, late: 1 year) while measuring the extent of acute lesions on white matter tracts to identify tracts predictive of recovery. We found that acute damage to the frontal aslant tract led to a decreased recovery of the fluency and structural complexity of connected speech during the year following left hemisphere stroke. The results were independent of baseline performance, overall lesion volume and the proportion of damage to tract-adjacent grey matter. This longitudinal analysis from acute to chronic stroke provides the first evidence that recovery of fluent and structurally complex spontaneous connected speech requires intact left frontal connectivity via the frontal aslant tract. That the frontal aslant tract was critical for recovery at early as well as later stages of stroke demonstrates that anterior connectivity plays a lasting and important role for the reorganization of function related to the successful production of connected speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junhua Ding
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Tatiana T Schnur
- Correspondence to: Tatiana T. Schnur Department of Neurosurgery Baylor College of Medicine 1 Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA E-mail:
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Fan L, Li C, Huang ZG, Zhao J, Wu X, Liu T, Li Y, Wang J. The longitudinal neural dynamics changes of whole brain connectome during natural recovery from poststroke aphasia. NEUROIMAGE: CLINICAL 2022; 36:103190. [PMID: 36174256 PMCID: PMC9668607 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2022] [Revised: 07/24/2022] [Accepted: 09/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Poststroke aphasia is one of the most dramatic functional deficits that results from direct damage of focal brain regions and dysfunction of large-scale brain networks. The reconstruction of language function depends on the hierarchical whole-brain dynamic reorganization. However, investigations into the longitudinal neural changes of large-scale brain networks for poststroke aphasia remain scarce. Here we characterize large-scale brain dynamics in left-frontal-stroke aphasia through energy landscape analysis. Using fMRI during an auditory comprehension task, we find that aphasia patients suffer serious whole-brain dynamics perturbation in the acute and subacute stages after stroke, in which the brains were restricted into two major activity patterns. Following spontaneous recovery process, the brain flexibility improved in the chronic stage. Critically, we demonstrated that the abnormal neural dynamics are correlated with the aberrant brain network coordination. Taken together, the energy landscape analysis exhibited that the acute poststroke aphasia has a constrained, low dimensional brain dynamics, which were replaced by less constrained and high dimensional dynamics at chronic aphasia. Our study provides a new perspective to profoundly understand the pathological mechanisms of poststroke aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liming Fan
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China
| | - Chenxi Li
- Department of the Psychology of Military Medicine, Air Force Medical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710032, PR China
| | - Zi-gang Huang
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China
| | - Jie Zhao
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China
| | - Xiaofeng Wu
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China
| | - Tian Liu
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China
| | - Youjun Li
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China,Corresponding authors at: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, PR China.
| | - Jue Wang
- The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Science, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices. Guangzhou, Guangdong 510500, PR China,The Key Laboratory of Neuro-informatics & Rehabilitation Engineering of Ministry of Civil Affairs, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, PR China,Corresponding authors at: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, PR China.
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Alyahya RSW, Lambon Ralph MA, Halai A, Hoffman P. The cognitive and neural underpinnings of discourse coherence in post-stroke aphasia. Brain Commun 2022; 4:fcac147. [PMID: 35774183 PMCID: PMC9240415 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2021] [Revised: 01/20/2022] [Accepted: 06/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Although impaired discourse production is one of the prominent features of aphasia, only a handful of investigations have addressed the cognitive, linguistic and neural processes that support the production of coherent discourse. In this study, we investigated the cognitive and neural correlates of discourse coherence in a large mixed cohort of patients with post-stroke aphasia, including the first voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping of coherence deficits. Discourse responses using different tasks were collected from 46 patients with post-stroke aphasia, including a wide range of classifications and severity levels, and 20 matched neuro-typical controls. Global coherence, defined as the degree to which utterances related to the expected topic of discourse, was estimated using a previously validated computational linguistic approach. Coherence was then related to fundamental language and cognitive components in aphasia identified using an extensive neuropsychological battery. Relative to neuro-typical controls, patients with aphasia exhibited impaired coherence, and their ability to maintain coherent discourse was related to their performance on other language components: phonological production, fluency and semantic processing, rather than executive functions or motor speech. These results suggest that impairments in core language components play a role in reducing discourse coherence in post-stroke aphasia. Whole-brain voxel-wise lesion-symptom mapping using univariate and multivariate approaches identified the contribution of the left prefrontal cortex, and particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (pars triangularis), to discourse coherence. These findings provide convergent evidence for the role of the inferior frontal gyrus in maintaining discourse coherence, which is consistent with the established role of this region in producing connected speech and semantic control (organizing and selecting appropriate context-relevant concepts). These results make an important contribution to understanding the root causes of disrupted discourse production in post-stroke aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reem S W Alyahya
- King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Faculty of Medicine, Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia
- Division of Language and Communication Science, School of Health Sciences, City University, London, UK
| | | | - Ajay Halai
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Paul Hoffman
- School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
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Hwang YE, Kim YB, Son YD. Finding Cortical Subregions Regarding the Dorsal Language Pathway Based on the Structural Connectivity. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:784340. [PMID: 35585994 PMCID: PMC9108242 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.784340] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2021] [Accepted: 04/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Although the language-related fiber pathways in the human brain, such as the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and arcuate fasciculus (AF), are already well-known, understanding more sophisticated cortical regions connected by the fiber tracts is essential to scrutinize the structural connectivity of language circuits. With the regions of interest that were selected based on the Brainnetome atlas, the fiber orientation distribution estimation method for tractography was used to produce further elaborate connectivity information. The results indicated that both fiber bundles had two distinct connections with the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The SLF-II and dorsal AF are mainly connected to the rostrodorsal part of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and lateral part of the fusiform gyrus with the inferior frontal junction (IFJ), respectively. In contrast, the SLF-III and ventral AF were primarily linked to the anterior part of the supramarginal gyrus and superior part of the temporal cortex with the inferior frontal cortex, including the Broca's area. Moreover, the IFJ in the PFC, which has rarely been emphasized as a language-related subregion, also had the strongest connectivity with the previously known language-related subregions among the PFC; consequently, we proposed that these specific regions are interconnected via the SLF and AF within the PFC, IPC, and temporal cortex as language-related circuitry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Young-Eun Hwang
- Neuroscience Convergence Center, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
- Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Gachion Advanced Institute for Health Sciences & Technology (GAHIST), Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea
| | - Young-Bo Kim
- Department of Neurosurgery, Gil Medical Center, College of Medicine, Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea
| | - Young-Don Son
- Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Gachion Advanced Institute for Health Sciences & Technology (GAHIST), Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea
- *Correspondence: Young-Don Son
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11
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Distinct roles of right temporoparietal cortex in pentagon copying test. Brain Imaging Behav 2022; 16:1528-1537. [PMID: 35083712 DOI: 10.1007/s11682-021-00607-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Pentagon Copying Test (PCT) is commonly used to assess visuospatial deficits, but the neural substrates underlying pentagon copying are not well understood. The Qualitative Scoring Pentagon Test (QSPT), an optimized scoring system, classifies five categories of errors patients make in pentagons copying and grades them depending on the errors' severity. To determine the strategic brain regions involved in the PCT, we applied the QSPT system to evaluate the visuospatial impairment of 136 acute ischemic stroke patients on the PCT and used Support Vector Regression Lesion-Symptom Mapping to investigate relevant brain regions. The total QSPT score was correlated with the right supramarginal gyrus. The angle number errors and closure errors were principally associated with lesions of the posterior temporoparietal cortex, including the right middle occipital gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, while the intersection errors and rotation errors were related to the more anterior part of the right temporoparietal lobe with the additional frontal cortex. In conclusion, the right temporoparietal cortex is the strategic region for pentagon copying tasks. The angle number and closure represent the visuospatial processing of within-object features, while intersection and rotation require between-object manipulation. The posterior-anterior distinction in the right temporoparietal region underlies the differences of within-object and between-object processing.
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12
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Gleichgerrcht E, Roth R, Fridriksson J, den Ouden D, Delgaizo J, Stark B, Hickok G, Rorden C, Wilmskoetter J, Hillis A, Bonilha L. Neural bases of elements of syntax during speech production in patients with aphasia. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2021; 222:105025. [PMID: 34555689 PMCID: PMC8546356 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2021.105025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2020] [Revised: 09/08/2021] [Accepted: 09/08/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
The ability to string together words into a structured arrangement capable of conveying nuanced information is key to speech production. The assessment of the neural bases for structuring sentences has been challenged by the need of experts to delineate the aberrant morphosyntactic structures in aphasic speech. Most studies have relied on focused tasks with limited ecological validity. We characterized syntactic complexity during connected speech produced by patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia. We automated this process by employing Natural Language Processing (NLP). We conducted voxel-based and connectome-based lesion-symptom mapping to identify brain regions crucially associated with sentence production and syntactic complexity. Posterior-inferior aspects of left frontal and parietal lobes, as well as white matter tracts connecting these areas, were essential for syntactic complexity, particularly the posterior inferior frontal gyrus. These findings suggest that sentence structuring during word production depends on the integrity of Broca's area and the dorsal stream of language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rebecca Roth
- Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
| | - Julius Fridriksson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
| | - Dirk den Ouden
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
| | - John Delgaizo
- Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
| | - Brielle Stark
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Gregory Hickok
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Chris Rorden
- Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
| | - Janina Wilmskoetter
- Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
| | - Argye Hillis
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Leonardo Bonilha
- Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
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13
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Lorca-Puls DL, Gajardo-Vidal A, Oberhuber M, Prejawa S, Hope TMH, Leff AP, Green DW, Price CJ. Brain regions that support accurate speech production after damage to Broca's area. Brain Commun 2021; 3:fcab230. [PMID: 34671727 PMCID: PMC8523882 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2021] [Revised: 09/03/2021] [Accepted: 09/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Broca’s area in the posterior half of the left inferior frontal gyrus has traditionally been considered an important node in the speech production network. Nevertheless, recovery of speech production has been reported, to different degrees, within a few months of damage to Broca’s area. Importantly, contemporary evidence suggests that, within Broca’s area, its posterior part (i.e. pars opercularis) plays a more prominent role in speech production than its anterior part (i.e. pars triangularis). In this study, we therefore investigated the brain activation patterns that underlie accurate speech production following stroke damage to the opercular part of Broca’s area. By combining functional MRI and 13 tasks that place varying demands on speech production, brain activation was compared in (i) seven patients of interest with damage to the opercular part of Broca’s area; (ii) 55 neurologically intact controls; and (iii) 28 patient controls with left-hemisphere damage that spared Broca’s area. When producing accurate overt speech responses, the patients with damage to the left pars opercularis activated a substantial portion of the normal bilaterally distributed system. Within this system, there was a lesion-site-dependent effect in a specific part of the right cerebellar Crus I where activation was significantly higher in the patients with damage to the left pars opercularis compared to both neurologically intact and patient controls. In addition, activation in the right pars opercularis was significantly higher in the patients with damage to the left pars opercularis relative to neurologically intact controls but not patient controls (after adjusting for differences in lesion size). By further examining how right Crus I and right pars opercularis responded across a range of conditions in the neurologically intact controls, we suggest that these regions play distinct roles in domain-general cognitive control. Finally, we show that enhanced activation in the right pars opercularis cannot be explained by release from an inhibitory relationship with the left pars opercularis (i.e. dis-inhibition) because right pars opercularis activation was positively related to left pars opercularis activation in neurologically intact controls. Our findings motivate and guide future studies to investigate (i) how exactly right Crus I and right pars opercularis support accurate speech production after damage to the opercular part of Broca’s area and (ii) whether non-invasive neurostimulation to one or both of these regions boosts speech production recovery after damage to the opercular part of Broca’s area.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diego L Lorca-Puls
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Andrea Gajardo-Vidal
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | | | - Marion Oberhuber
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Susan Prejawa
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Thomas M H Hope
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Alexander P Leff
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - David W Green
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Cathy J Price
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
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14
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Meier EL, Sheppard SM, Goldberg EB, Kelly CR, Walker A, Ubellacker DM, Vitti E, Ruch K, Hillis AE. Dysfunctional Tissue Correlates of Unrelated Naming Errors in Acute Left Hemisphere Stroke. LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 2021; 37:330-347. [PMID: 35665076 PMCID: PMC9159539 DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2021.1980593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2020] [Accepted: 08/31/2021] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Most naming error lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) studies have focused on semantic and/or phonological errors. Anomic individuals also produce unrelated word errors, which may be linked to semantic or modality-independent lexical deficits. To investigate the neural underpinnings of rarely-studied unrelated errors, we conducted LSM analyses in 100 individuals hospitalized with a left hemisphere stroke who completed imaging protocols and language assessments. We used least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression to capture relationships between naming errors and dysfunctional brain tissue metrics (regional damage or hypoperfusion in vascular territories) in two groups: participants with and without impaired single-word auditory comprehension. Hypoperfusion-particularly within the parietal lobe-was an important error predictor, especially for the unimpaired group. In both groups, higher unrelated error proportions were associated with primarily ventral stream damage, the language route critical for processing meaning. Nonetheless, brain metrics implicated in unrelated errors were distinct from semantic error correlates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erin L. Meier
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | - Shannon M. Sheppard
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Chapman University, Irvine, CA
| | - Emily B. Goldberg
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | - Catherine R. Kelly
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | - Alexandra Walker
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | | | - Emilia Vitti
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | - Kristina Ruch
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
| | - Argye E. Hillis
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
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15
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Gajardo-Vidal A, Lorca-Puls DL, Team P, Warner H, Pshdary B, Crinion JT, Leff AP, Hope TMH, Geva S, Seghier ML, Green DW, Bowman H, Price CJ. Damage to Broca's area does not contribute to long-term speech production outcome after stroke. Brain 2021; 144:817-832. [PMID: 33517378 PMCID: PMC8041045 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awaa460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2020] [Revised: 10/12/2020] [Accepted: 10/22/2020] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Broca's area in the posterior half of the left inferior frontal gyrus has long been thought to be critical for speech production. The current view is that long-term speech production outcome in patients with Broca's area damage is best explained by the combination of damage to Broca's area and neighbouring regions including the underlying white matter, which was also damaged in Paul Broca's two historic cases. Here, we dissociate the effect of damage to Broca's area from the effect of damage to surrounding areas by studying long-term speech production outcome in 134 stroke survivors with relatively circumscribed left frontal lobe lesions that spared posterior speech production areas in lateral inferior parietal and superior temporal association cortices. Collectively, these patients had varying degrees of damage to one or more of nine atlas-based grey or white matter regions: Brodmann areas 44 and 45 (together known as Broca's area), ventral premotor cortex, primary motor cortex, insula, putamen, the anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus and frontal aslant tract. Spoken picture description scores from the Comprehensive Aphasia Test were used as the outcome measure. Multiple regression analyses allowed us to tease apart the contribution of other variables influencing speech production abilities such as total lesion volume and time post-stroke. We found that, in our sample of patients with left frontal damage, long-term speech production impairments (lasting beyond 3 months post-stroke) were solely predicted by the degree of damage to white matter, directly above the insula, in the vicinity of the anterior part of the arcuate fasciculus, with no contribution from the degree of damage to Broca's area (as confirmed with Bayesian statistics). The effect of white matter damage cannot be explained by a disconnection of Broca's area, because speech production scores were worse after damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus with relative sparing of Broca's area than after damage to Broca's area with relative sparing of the anterior arcuate fasciculus. Our findings provide evidence for three novel conclusions: (i) Broca's area damage does not contribute to long-term speech production outcome after left frontal lobe strokes; (ii) persistent speech production impairments after damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus cannot be explained by a disconnection of Broca's area; and (iii) the prior association between persistent speech production impairments and Broca's area damage can be explained by co-occurring white matter damage, above the insula, in the vicinity of the anterior part of the arcuate fasciculus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Gajardo-Vidal
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK.,Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad del Desarrollo, Concepcion, Chile
| | - Diego L Lorca-Puls
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK.,Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile
| | - Ploras Team
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Holly Warner
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Bawan Pshdary
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Jennifer T Crinion
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Alexander P Leff
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.,Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Thomas M H Hope
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Sharon Geva
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
| | - Mohamed L Seghier
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE
| | - David W Green
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Howard Bowman
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems and the School of Computing, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.,School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Cathy J Price
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK
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16
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Fromm D, Katta S, Paccione M, Hecht S, Greenhouse J, MacWhinney B, Schnur TT. A Comparison of Manual Versus Automated Quantitative Production Analysis of Connected Speech. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:1271-1282. [PMID: 33784197 PMCID: PMC8608208 DOI: 10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00561] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2020] [Revised: 11/19/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Analysis of connected speech in the field of adult neurogenic communication disorders is essential for research and clinical purposes, yet time and expertise are often cited as limiting factors. The purpose of this project was to create and evaluate an automated program to score and compute the measures from the Quantitative Production Analysis (QPA), an objective and systematic approach for measuring morphological and structural features of connected speech. Method The QPA was used to analyze transcripts of Cinderella stories from 109 individuals with acute-subacute left hemisphere stroke. Regression slopes and residuals were used to compare the results of manual scoring and automated scoring using the newly developed C-QPA command in CLAN, a set of programs for automatic analysis of language samples. Results The C-QPA command produced two spreadsheet outputs: an analysis spreadsheet with scores for each utterance in the language sample, and a summary spreadsheet with 18 score totals from the analysis spreadsheet and an additional 15 measures derived from those totals. Linear regression analysis revealed that 32 of the 33 measures had good agreement; auxiliary complexity index was the one score that did not have good agreement. Conclusions The C-QPA command can be used to perform automated analyses of language transcripts, saving time and training and providing reliable and valid quantification of connected speech. Transcribing in CHAT, the CLAN editor, also streamlined the process of transcript preparation for QPA and allowed for precise linking of media files to language transcripts for temporal analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Davida Fromm
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Saketh Katta
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
| | - Mason Paccione
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Sophia Hecht
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Joel Greenhouse
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Brian MacWhinney
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Tatiana T. Schnur
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
- Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
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17
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Martin RC, Ding J, Hamilton AC, Schnur TT. Working Memory Capacities Neurally Dissociate: Evidence from Acute Stroke. Cereb Cortex Commun 2021; 2:tgab005. [PMID: 33870195 PMCID: PMC8030664 DOI: 10.1093/texcom/tgab005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Revised: 01/18/2021] [Accepted: 01/21/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Substantial behavioral evidence implies the existence of separable working memory (WM) components for maintaining phonological and semantic information. In contrast, only a few studies have addressed the neural basis of phonological versus semantic WM using functional neuroimaging and none has used a lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) approach. Here, we address this gap, reporting a multivariate LSM study of phonological and semantic WM for 94 individuals at the acute stage of left hemisphere stroke. Testing at the acute stage avoids issues of brain reorganization and the adoption of patient strategies for task performance. The LSM analyses for each WM component controlled for the other WM component and semantic and phonological knowledge at the single word level. For phonological WM, the regions uncovered included the supramarginal gyrus, argued to be the site of phonological storage, and several cortical and subcortical regions plausibly related to inner rehearsal. For semantic WM, inferior frontal regions and the angular gyrus were uncovered. The findings thus provide converging evidence for separable systems for phonological and semantic WM that are distinguished from the systems supporting long-term knowledge representations in those domains.
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Affiliation(s)
- Randi C Martin
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251, USA
| | - Junhua Ding
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - A Cris Hamilton
- Department of Institution Reporting, Research and Information Systems, University of Texas at Austin, Austin 78701, TX, USA
| | - Tatiana T Schnur
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
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18
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Fedorenko E, Blank IA, Siegelman M, Mineroff Z. Lack of selectivity for syntax relative to word meanings throughout the language network. Cognition 2020; 203:104348. [PMID: 32569894 DOI: 10.1101/477851] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2018] [Revised: 05/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/31/2020] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
To understand what you are reading now, your mind retrieves the meanings of words and constructions from a linguistic knowledge store (lexico-semantic processing) and identifies the relationships among them to construct a complex meaning (syntactic or combinatorial processing). Do these two sets of processes rely on distinct, specialized mechanisms or, rather, share a common pool of resources? Linguistic theorizing, empirical evidence from language acquisition and processing, and computational modeling have jointly painted a picture whereby lexico-semantic and syntactic processing are deeply inter-connected and perhaps not separable. In contrast, many current proposals of the neural architecture of language continue to endorse a view whereby certain brain regions selectively support syntactic/combinatorial processing, although the locus of such "syntactic hub", and its nature, vary across proposals. Here, we searched for selectivity for syntactic over lexico-semantic processing using a powerful individual-subjects fMRI approach across three sentence comprehension paradigms that have been used in prior work to argue for such selectivity: responses to lexico-semantic vs. morpho-syntactic violations (Experiment 1); recovery from neural suppression across pairs of sentences differing in only lexical items vs. only syntactic structure (Experiment 2); and same/different meaning judgments on such sentence pairs (Experiment 3). Across experiments, both lexico-semantic and syntactic conditions elicited robust responses throughout the left fronto-temporal language network. Critically, however, no regions were more strongly engaged by syntactic than lexico-semantic processing, although some regions showed the opposite pattern. Thus, contra many current proposals of the neural architecture of language, syntactic/combinatorial processing is not separable from lexico-semantic processing at the level of brain regions-or even voxel subsets-within the language network, in line with strong integration between these two processes that has been consistently observed in behavioral and computational language research. The results further suggest that the language network may be generally more strongly concerned with meaning than syntactic form, in line with the primary function of language-to share meanings across minds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Matthew Siegelman
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Zachary Mineroff
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
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19
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Fedorenko E, Blank IA, Siegelman M, Mineroff Z. Lack of selectivity for syntax relative to word meanings throughout the language network. Cognition 2020; 203:104348. [PMID: 32569894 PMCID: PMC7483589 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104348] [Citation(s) in RCA: 61] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2018] [Revised: 05/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/31/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
To understand what you are reading now, your mind retrieves the meanings of words and constructions from a linguistic knowledge store (lexico-semantic processing) and identifies the relationships among them to construct a complex meaning (syntactic or combinatorial processing). Do these two sets of processes rely on distinct, specialized mechanisms or, rather, share a common pool of resources? Linguistic theorizing, empirical evidence from language acquisition and processing, and computational modeling have jointly painted a picture whereby lexico-semantic and syntactic processing are deeply inter-connected and perhaps not separable. In contrast, many current proposals of the neural architecture of language continue to endorse a view whereby certain brain regions selectively support syntactic/combinatorial processing, although the locus of such "syntactic hub", and its nature, vary across proposals. Here, we searched for selectivity for syntactic over lexico-semantic processing using a powerful individual-subjects fMRI approach across three sentence comprehension paradigms that have been used in prior work to argue for such selectivity: responses to lexico-semantic vs. morpho-syntactic violations (Experiment 1); recovery from neural suppression across pairs of sentences differing in only lexical items vs. only syntactic structure (Experiment 2); and same/different meaning judgments on such sentence pairs (Experiment 3). Across experiments, both lexico-semantic and syntactic conditions elicited robust responses throughout the left fronto-temporal language network. Critically, however, no regions were more strongly engaged by syntactic than lexico-semantic processing, although some regions showed the opposite pattern. Thus, contra many current proposals of the neural architecture of language, syntactic/combinatorial processing is not separable from lexico-semantic processing at the level of brain regions-or even voxel subsets-within the language network, in line with strong integration between these two processes that has been consistently observed in behavioral and computational language research. The results further suggest that the language network may be generally more strongly concerned with meaning than syntactic form, in line with the primary function of language-to share meanings across minds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Matthew Siegelman
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Zachary Mineroff
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
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20
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Boucher J, Marcotte K, Brisebois A, Courson M, Houzé B, Desautels A, Léonard C, Rochon E, Brambati SM. Word-finding in confrontation naming and picture descriptions produced by individuals with early post-stroke aphasia. Clin Neuropsychol 2020; 36:1422-1437. [PMID: 32924789 DOI: 10.1080/13854046.2020.1817563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The present study aims to assess the relationship between quantitative measures of connected speech production and performance in confrontation naming in early post-stroke aphasia (8-14 days post-stroke). Method: We collected connected speech samples elicited by a picture description task and administered a confrontation naming task to 20 individuals with early post-stroke aphasia and 20 healthy controls. Transcriptions were made in compliance with the CHAT format guidelines. Several micro- (i.e. duration, total number of words, words per minute, mean length of utterances, ratio of open- to closed-class words and noun-to-verb ratio, VOC-D, repetitions, self-corrections, and phonological and semantic errors) and macrolinguistic (i.e. informativeness and efficiency) measures were extracted. Results: We provide evidence for the presence of impairments in an array of micro- and macrolinguistic measures of speech in individuals with early post-stroke aphasia. We show that in the patient group, confrontation naming abilities most strongly relate to informativeness in a picture description task. Conclusion: Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between performance in confrontation naming and in connected speech production in the first days after stroke onset and also suggest that discourse analysis may provide unique, possibly more complex information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johémie Boucher
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Karine Marcotte
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Amélie Brisebois
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Melody Courson
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Bérengère Houzé
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Alex Desautels
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,Département des neurosciences, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Carol Léonard
- School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| | - Elizabeth Rochon
- Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.,Department of Speech-Language Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.,Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Toronto, Canada.,Heart and Stroke Foundation, Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| | - Simona M Brambati
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.,Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
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21
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Keser Z, Meier EL, Stockbridge MD, Hillis AE. The role of microstructural integrity of major language pathways in narrative speech in the first year after stroke. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis 2020; 29:105078. [PMID: 32807476 DOI: 10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2020.105078] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2020] [Revised: 06/15/2020] [Accepted: 06/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Left hemisphere stroke often results in a variety of language deficits due to varying patterns of damage to language networks. The Cookie Theft picture description task, a classic, quick bedside assessment, has been shown to quantify narrative speech reliably. In this study, we utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to assess language network white matter tract correlates of lexical-semantic and syntactic impairments longitudinally. METHODS Twenty-eight patients with mild to severe language impairments after left hemispheric lobar and/or subcortical ischemic stroke underwent the Cookie Theft picture description test and DTI up to three different time points: within the first three months, six months and twelve months after stroke. Dorsal and ventral stream language pathways were segmented to obtain DTI integrity metrics of both hemispheres. Multivariable regression models and partial correlation analyses adjusted for age, education, and lesion load were conducted to evaluate the temporal DTI profile of the white matter microstructural integrity of the language tracts as neural correlates of narrative speech within the first year after stroke. RESULTS Among all the major language white matter pathways, the integrity of the left arcuate (AF), inferior fronto-occipital, and inferior longitudinal fasciculi (ILF) were related to picture description performance. After FDR correction, left ILF fractional anisotropy correlated with syntactic cohesiveness (r=0.85,p=0.00087) within the first three months after stroke, whereas at one year post-stroke, the strongest correlations were found between lexical-semantic performance and left AF radial diffusivity (r = -0.71, p = 0.00065). CONCLUSION Our study provides a temporal profile of associations between the integrity of the main language pathways and lexical semantics and syntactic impairments in left hemispheric strokes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zafer Keser
- Department of Neurology, The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston TX, United States; Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
| | - Erin L Meier
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
| | - Melissa D Stockbridge
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
| | - Argye E Hillis
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
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