The logopenic/phonological variant of primary progressive aphasia

Abstract

Objective: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is characterized by isolated decline in language functions. Semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia are accepted PPA variants. A "logopenic" variant (LPA) has also been proposed, but its cognitive and anatomic profile is less defined. The aim of this study was to establish the cognitive and anatomic features of LPA.Methods: Six previously unreported LPA cases underwent extensive neuropsychological evaluation and an experimental study of phonological loop functions, including auditory and visual span tasks with digits, letters, and words. For each patient, a voxel-wise, automated analysis of MRI or SPECT data were conducted using SPM2. Results:In LPA, speech rate was slow, with long word-finding pauses. Grammar and articulation were preserved, although phonological paraphasias could be present. Repetition and comprehension were impaired for sentences but preserved for single words, and naming was moderately affected. Investigation of phonological loop functions showed that patients were severely impaired in digit, letter, and word span tasks. Performance did not improve with pointing, was influenced by word length, and did not show the normal phonological similarity effect. Atrophy or decreased blood flow was consistently found in the posterior portion of the left superior and middle temporal gyri and inferior parietal lobule.

Syntactic comprehension deficits across the FTD-ALS continuum

“…12 Patients with PNFA exhibited nonfluent speech combined with variable motor speech apraxia, agrammatism, or impaired syntactic comprehension, despite spared single-word comprehension and object knowledge. 28 When necessary, alternative diagnoses were excluded on the basis of blood tests for immunemediated or inflammatory disorders, cerebrospinal fluid examinations, imaging of the spine, and electromyographic studies. Patients with a history of prior mental illness, significant head injury, movement disorder, or drug and alcohol abuse were excluded.…”

Interpreting potential markers of storage and rehearsal: Implications for studies of verbal short-term memory and neuropsychological cases

“…It is possible that these negative manipulation effects, which we believe can arise when overall performance levels are low, would not be seen to the same extent in studies that employ more sensitive measures of recall, and indeed the majority of neuropsychological studies present considerably more trials to measure recall performance at a given list length than the three employed by Logie et al (1996) (e.g., Belleville et al, 1992;Bisiacchi et al, 1989;Gorno-Tempini et al, 2008;Gvion & Friedmann, 2012;Jacquemot et al, 2011;Papagno et al, 2008;Silveri & Baldonero, 2013;Trojano & Grossi, 1995;Vallar et al, 1990;Vallar et al, 1997;Waters et al, 1992; though see by contrast Chiricozzi et al, 2008;Vallar et al, 1992;Vallat-Azouvi et al, 2007). However, the significant correlations between the size of individuals' similarity and word length effects across the two presentation modalities (auditory vs. visual), reported for the first time in the current paper, indicates that these effects were not entirely unreliable in the Logie et al (1996) data.…”

“…Caplan et al, 2012). Importantly, neuropsychological studies in this area have measured either phonological similarity or word length effects in terms of the absolute difference between span or recall scores across conditions (e.g., Belleville et al, 1992;Bisiacchi et al, 1989;Chiricozzi et al, 2008;Gorno-Tempini et al, 2008;Gvion & Friedmann, 2012;Howard & Franklin, 1990;Jacquemot et al, 2011;Papagno et al, 2008;Silveri & Baldonero, 2013;Trojano & Grossi, 1995;Vallar et al, 1990;Vallar et al, 1992;Vallar et al, 1997;Vallat-Azouvi et al, 2007;Waters et al, 1992). Indeed, to our knowledge no neuropsychological report of short-term memory function, including those published since Logie et al's (1996) paper, has employed proportional scoring of these effects.…”

L'aphasie (primaire) progressive: un diagnostic simple ou complexe

“…La variante logopénique occupe une place spéciale [33,34]. Elle est classée dans les APP fluentes pour la plupart des auteurs.…”