Action verb comprehension in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease

York, Collin; Olm, Christopher; Boller, Ashley; McCluskey, Leo; Elman, Lauren; Haley, Jenna; Seltzer, Emily; Chahine, Lana M.; Woo, John; Rascovsky, Katya; McMillan, Corey T.; Grossman, Murray

doi:10.1007/s00415-014-7314-y

Cited by 44 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…For example, several studies have demonstrated that comprehension of action verbs results in the activation of motor areas in the brain ( Binder and Desai, 2011 , Meteyard et al, 2012 ). Additionally, studies among patients with neurological disorders characterized by motor impairment have systematically found more prominent impairment for verb than noun processing ( Bak and Hodges, 2004 , Fernandino et al, 2013 , York et al, 2014 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separate neural systems support representations for actions and objects during narrative speech in post-stroke aphasia

Gleichgerrcht

Fridriksson

Rorden

et al. 2016

NeuroImage: Clinical

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BackgroundRepresentations of objects and actions in everyday speech are usually materialized as nouns and verbs, two grammatical classes that constitute the core elements of language. Given their very distinct roles in singling out objects (nouns) or referring to transformative actions (verbs), they likely rely on distinct brain circuits.MethodWe tested this hypothesis by conducting network-based lesion-symptom mapping in 38 patients with chronic stroke to the left hemisphere. We reconstructed the individual brain connectomes from probabilistic tractography applied to magnetic resonance imaging and obtained measures of production of words referring to objects and actions from narrative discourse elicited by picture naming tasks.ResultsWords for actions were associated with a frontal network strongly engaging structures involved in motor control and programming. Words for objects, instead, were related to a posterior network spreading across the occipital, posterior inferior temporal, and parietal regions, likely related with visual processing and imagery, object recognition, and spatial attention/scanning. Thus, each of these networks engaged brain areas typically involved in cognitive and sensorimotor experiences equivalent to the function served by each grammatical class (e.g. motor areas for verbs, perception areas for nouns).ConclusionsThe finding that the two major grammatical classes in human speech rely on two dissociable networks has both important theoretical implications for the neurobiology of language and clinical implications for the assessment and potential rehabilitation and treatment of patients with chronic aphasia due to stroke.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separate neural systems support representations for actions and objects during narrative speech in post-stroke aphasia

Gleichgerrcht

Fridriksson

Rorden

et al. 2016

NeuroImage: Clinical

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“…Relative deficits with concrete object concepts compared with abstract concepts are found in large series of svPPA patients both in comprehension using lexical stimuli and in narrative expression (Cousins et al 2016, 2017; Hoffman et al 2013). Other examples of relative sensory–motor deficits include difficulty naming and understanding concepts that are associated with motor actions in nonaphasic patients with a neurodegenerative motor disorder known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Grossman et al 2008a, York et al 2014), and reduced comprehension of concepts like ‘thunder’ that depend on auditory feature knowledge in patients who have difficulty with auditory short-term memory (Bonner & Grossman 2012). Note that, because most object concepts do not consist exclusively of visual features, object knowledge may be supported in part by features that are not visual in nature.…”

Section: Semantic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Aspects of Primary Progressive Aphasia

Grossman

2018

Annu. Rev. Linguist.

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Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) refers to a disorder of declining language associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as frontotemporal degeneration and Alzheimer disease. Variants of PPA are important to recognize from a medical perspective because these syndromes are clinical markers suggesting specific underlying pathology. In this review, I discuss linguistic aspects of PPA syndromes that may prove informative for parsing our language mechanism and identifying the neural representation of fundamental elements of language. I focus on the representation of word meaning in a discussion of semantic variant PPA, grammatical comprehension and expression in a discussion of nonfluent/agrammatic variant PPA, the supporting role of short-term memory in a discussion of logopenic variant PPA, and components of language associated with discourse in a discussion of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. PPA provides a novel perspective that uniquely addresses facets of language and its disorders while complementing traditional aphasia syndromes that follow stroke.

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“…Bak, O'Donovan, Xuereb, Boniface, & Hodges, 2001; Boulenger, Mechtouff, Thobois, Broussolle, Jeannerod, & Nazir, 2008;Fernandino et al, 2013a;Fernandino et al, 2013b, but see Kemmerer, Miller, MacPherson, Huber, & Tranel, 2010York et al, 2014). Boulenger et al (2008) found priming effects for action verbs in PD varied as a function of Levodopa uptake (medication improving motor impairment in PD).…”

Section: Methodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired Comprehension of Speed Verbs in Parkinson’s Disease

Speed

Dam

Hirath

et al. 2017

J Int Neuropsychol Soc

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Objective: A wealth of studies provide evidence for action simulation during language comprehension. Recent research suggests such action simulations might be sensitive to finegrained information, such as speed. Here we present a crucial test for action simulation of speed in language by assessing speed comprehension in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Based on the patients' motor deficits, we hypothesized that the speed of motion described in language would modulate their performance in semantic tasks. Specifically, they would have more difficulty processing language about relatively fast speed than language about slow speed. Method:We conducted a semantic similarity judgment task on fast and slow action verbs in patients with PD and age-matched healthy controls. Participants had to decide which of two verbs most closely matched a target word. Results: Compared to controls, PD patients were slower making judgments about fast action verbs, but not for judgments about slow action verbs, suggesting impairment in processing language about fast action. Moreover, this impairment was specific to verbs describing fast action performed with the hand. Conclusions:Problems moving quickly lead to difficulties comprehending language about moving quickly.This study provides evidence that speed is an important part of action representations.Keywords: embodiment; Parkinson's disease; action semantics; speed Speed -Speed Verbs in Parkinson's Disease 3 The view that meaning in language is represented in modality-specific brain regions (e.g., Binder & Desai, 2011) contrasts with proposals that meaning is stored in abstract, amodal systems (e.g., Landau & Dumais, 1997). There now exist a large number of studies demonstrating action simulation during language comprehension (for review see Fischer & Zwaan, 2008). A critical question, however, is the level of abstraction of action simulations; to what extent do they mirror real-world action? Embodied theories are underspecified in terms of how much information is contained in a simulation (Sanford, 2008), or at what grain information is represented.Action simulations include the specific effector used in the action (Hauk, Johnsrude, & Pulvermüller, 2004), or the specificity of the action . Recent research suggests even fine-grained temporal information is represented in action simulations: whether the action is fast or slow (Speed & Vigliocco, 2014;Speed & Vigliocco, 2015; van Dam, Speed, Lai, Vigliocco, & Desai, in press). Speed & Vigliocco (2014) showed online simulations are sensitive to speed: when listening to sentences describing fast and slow actions (e.g. The lion dashed to the balloon vs. The lion ambled to the balloon) looking time towards a concurrent visual scene was longer for slow actions compared to fast actions. Related, mental simulation is also sensitive to the degree of effort implied in a sentence (e.g., pushing the piano vs. pushing the chair) (Moody & Gennari, 2010).Studies of patients with motor deficits can provide strong tests of causali...

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Action verb comprehension in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease

Cited by 44 publications

References 27 publications

Separate neural systems support representations for actions and objects during narrative speech in post-stroke aphasia

Separate neural systems support representations for actions and objects during narrative speech in post-stroke aphasia

Linguistic Aspects of Primary Progressive Aphasia

Impaired Comprehension of Speed Verbs in Parkinson’s Disease

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