Parkinson's disease compromises the appraisal of action meanings evoked by naturalistic texts

García, Adolfo M.; Bocanegra, Yamile; Herrera, Elena; Moreno, Leonardo; Carmona, Jairo; Baena, Ana; Lopera, Francisco; Pineda, David; Melloni, Margherita; Legaz, Agustina; Muñoz, Édinson; Sedeño, Lucas; Báez, Sandra; Ibáñez, Agustín

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.003

Cited by 65 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…In Eval-2 (age 73), when atrophy had extended to the supramarginal gyrus and, more crucially, to various regions subserving motor function –namely, the thalamus ( Sommer, 2003 ), the cerebellum ( Manto et al, 2012 ), the rolandic operculum ( Brown et al, 2007 , 2009 ), and the inferior and superior frontal gyri ( Dassonville et al, 2001 ; Gardini et al, 2016 )–, the patient’s noun fluency deficits were accompanied by action-verb difficulties. This aligns with evidence that left posterior frontal lesions typically involve greater impairments for verbs than nouns in naming and repetition tasks –even with ambiguous items and pseudo-words– ( Shapiro and Caramazza, 2003 ), and that action verbs may become selectively compromised in patients with frontostriatal motor network atrophy ( Birba et al, 2017 ; Bocanegra et al, 2017 ; García et al, 2017a ). The patient’s anatomo-clinical profile in Eval-2 extends such findings, further suggesting that action-verb deficits are distinctly related to damage of anterior/motor regions, as opposed to other portions of the vast language network.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Progressive Compromise of Nouns and Action Verbs in Posterior Cortical Atrophy

et al. 2018

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Processing of nouns and action verbs can be differentially compromised following lesions to posterior and anterior/motor brain regions, respectively. However, little is known about how these deficits progress in the course of neurodegeneration. To address this issue, we assessed productive lexical skills in a patient with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) at two different stages of his pathology. On both occasions, he underwent a structural brain imaging protocol and completed semantic fluency tasks requiring retrieval of animals (nouns) and actions (verbs). Imaging results were compared with those of controls via voxel-based morphometry (VBM), whereas fluency performance was compared to age-matched norms through Crawford’s t-tests. In the first assessment, the patient exhibited atrophy of more posterior regions supporting multimodal semantics (medial temporal and lingual gyri), together with a selective deficit in noun fluency. Then, by the second assessment, the patient’s atrophy had progressed mainly toward fronto-motor regions (rolandic operculum, inferior and superior frontal gyri) and subcortical motor hubs (cerebellum, thalamus), and his fluency impairments had extended to action verbs. These results offer unprecedented evidence of the specificity of the pathways related to noun and action-verb impairments in the course of neurodegeneration, highlighting the latter’s critical dependence on damage to regions supporting motor functions, as opposed to multimodal semantic processes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Progressive Compromise of Nouns and Action Verbs in Posterior Cortical Atrophy

et al. 2018

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“…At the same time, our study carries an important methodological implication for handwriting studies in general: Given that fine‐grained semantic aspects of the target words can modulate writing kinematics, it seems crucial to control the ratio of action‐to‐non‐action words in an experiment’s stimulus sets, as gross outcomes could be partially driven by inconspicuous embodied effects differing between conditions. Moreover, this consideration could be contemplated in future studies extending our paradigm beyond the single‐word level, so as to explore language‐embodiment effects on more realistic linguistic materials (Desai et al, ; García et al, ; Trevisan et al, ).…”

Section: Limitations and Avenues For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Embodied Penman: Effector‐Specific Motor–Language Integration During Handwriting

et al. 2019

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Several studies have illuminated how processing manual action verbs (MaVs) affects the programming or execution of concurrent hand movements. Here, to circumvent key confounds in extant designs, we conducted the first assessment of motor–language integration during handwriting—a task in which linguistic and motoric processes are co‐substantiated. Participants copied MaVs, non‐manual action verbs, and non‐action verbs as we collected measures of motor programming and motor execution. Programming latencies were similar across conditions, but execution was faster for MaVs than for the other categories, regardless of whether word meanings were accessed implicitly or explicitly. In line with the Hand‐Action‐Network Dynamic Language Embodiment (HANDLE) model, such findings suggest that effector‐congruent verbs can prime manual movements even during highly automatized tasks in which motoric and verbal processes are naturally intertwined. Our paradigm opens new avenues for fine‐grained explorations of embodied language processes.

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“…In healthy subjects, action semantics is differentially related to activity in the primary motor and premotor cortices ( Jirak et al, 2010 ; Vigliocco et al, 2011 ; García and Ibáñez, 2016a ). Moreover, this domain is selectively affected by damage to those regions ( Neininger and Pulvermüller, 2003 ) or to frontostriatal motor loops ( García et al, 2016b , 2017a , b ; Birba et al, 2017a ). Our results extend these findings, showing that damage to the cerebellum, another critical motor hub, can also lead to selective deficits in action-semantic processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, executive functions were assessed through the INECO Frontal Screening (IFS) battery ( Torralva et al, 2009 ). This tool has proved sensitive for population with damage to motor regions ( Cardona et al, 2014 ; Bocanegra et al, 2015 ; García et al, 2016a , 2017a ). The IFS taps domains such as motor programming, conflict resolution, inhibitory control, and working memory.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action Semantics at the Bottom of the Brain: Insights From Dysplastic Cerebellar Gangliocytoma

et al. 2018

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Recent embodied cognition research shows that access to action verbs in shallow-processing tasks becomes selectively compromised upon atrophy of the cerebellum, a critical motor region. Here we assessed whether cerebellar damage also disturbs explicit semantic processing of action pictures and its integration with ongoing motor responses. We evaluated a cognitively preserved 33-year-old man with severe dysplastic cerebellar gangliocytoma (Lhermitte-Duclos disease), encompassing most of the right cerebellum and the posterior part of the left cerebellum. The patient and eight healthy controls completed two semantic association tasks (involving pictures of objects and actions, respectively) that required motor responses. Accuracy results via Crawford’s modified t-tests revealed that the patient was selectively impaired in action association. Moreover, reaction-time analysis through Crawford’s Revised Standardized Difference Test showed that, while processing of action concepts involved slower manual responses in controls, no such effect was observed in the patient, suggesting that motor-semantic integration dynamics may be compromised following cerebellar damage. Notably, a Bayesian Test for a Deficit allowing for Covariates revealed that these patterns remained after covarying for executive performance, indicating that they were not secondary to extra-linguistic impairments. Taken together, our results extend incipient findings on the embodied functions of the cerebellum, offering unprecedented evidence of its crucial role in processing non-verbal action meanings and integrating them with concomitant movements. These findings illuminate the relatively unexplored semantic functions of this region while calling for extensions of motor cognition models.

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Parkinson's disease compromises the appraisal of action meanings evoked by naturalistic texts

Cited by 65 publications

References 71 publications

Progressive Compromise of Nouns and Action Verbs in Posterior Cortical Atrophy

Progressive Compromise of Nouns and Action Verbs in Posterior Cortical Atrophy

The Embodied Penman: Effector‐Specific Motor–Language Integration During Handwriting

Action Semantics at the Bottom of the Brain: Insights From Dysplastic Cerebellar Gangliocytoma

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