Nonmotor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) involving cognition and emotionality have progressively received attention. The objective of the present study was to investigate recognition of emotional prosody in patients with PD (n = 14) in comparison to healthy control subjects (HC, n = 14). Event-related brain potentials (ERP) were recorded in a modified oddball paradigm under passive listening and active target detection instructions. Results showed a poorer performance of PD patients in classifying emotional prosody. ERP generated by emotional deviants (happy/sad) during passive listening revealed diminished amplitudes of the mismatch-related negativity for sad deviants, indicating an impairment of early preattentive processing of emotional prosody in PD.
Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) tend to speak monotonously with minor modulation of pitch and intensity. The goal of this study was to find out whether these speech changes can be explained mainly by motor impairment, i.e. akinesia and rigidity of the articulatory apparatus, or whether alterations of emotional processing play an additional role. Sixteen patients with mild PD and 16 healthy controls (HC) were compared. Fundamental frequencies (pitch) and intensities (loudness) were determined as (1) maximal upper and lower values achieved in nonemotional speech (phonation capacity), (2) upper and lower values used when speaking "Anna" in emotional intonation (neutral, sad, happy) as requested (production task), or (3) when imitating a professional speaker (imitation task). Although groups did not significantly differ in their phonation capacity, patients showed a significantly smaller pitch and intensity range than HC in the production task. In the imitation task, however, ranges were again similar. These results suggest that alterations of emotional processing contribute to speech changes in PD, especially regarding emotional prosody, in addition to motor impairment.
Zusammenfassung: Mit Hilfe der elektrischen Reizung des Hörnervs durch implantierte Elektroden in die Hörschnecke (Cochlea-Implantat: CI) kann bei Ertaubten die Fähigkeit zur Wahrnehmung akustischer Sprachlaute wieder hergestellt werden. Aufgrund der herabgesetzten akustische Qualität der Signale ziehen diese zusätzliche visuelle Informationen heran. Akustische Sprachreize (zweisilbige Substantive) wurden zeitgleich zu einem Video-Segment mit dem Gesicht des Sprechers dargeboten, das entweder dem akustischen Wort kongruente (z. B. Audio: Hotel, Video: Hotel) oder inkongruente Information (z. B. Audio: Hotel, Video: Insel) aussprach. Die Analyse der Verhaltensdaten ergab, dass CI-Patienten deutlich von der zusätzlichen Darbietung des Sprechergesichtes profitieren, um Sprachlaute zu verstehen. Auch Normalhörende nutzen visuelle Informationen, vor allem, wenn die akustischen Signale verrauscht und schwer verständlich sind. Die audiovisuelle Sprachverarbeitung löst bei CI-Nutzern und Normalhörenden unterschiedliche Amplitudenverläufe im ereigniskorrelierten Potenzial aus. Dabei zeigen sich vor allem Unterschiede im okzipitalen Bereich, was als Reorganisation nach Hördeprivation bei CI-Patienten verstanden werden kann.
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