Abstract
In this paper, experimental results on the study of language loss in pro- dromal Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the elderly are linked to experimen- tal results from the study of language acquisition in the child, via a tran- sitional stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Recent brain imag- ing results from a pilot study comparing prodromal AD and normal ag- ing are reported. Both, behavioral results and their underlying neural underpinnings, identify the source of language deficits in MCI as break- down in syntax–semantics integration. These results are linked to inde- pendent discoveries regarding the ontogeny of language in the child and their neural foundations. It is suggested that these convergent results ad- vance our understanding of the true nature of maturational processes in language, allowing us to reconsider a “regression hypothesis” (e.g., Ribot 1881), wherein later acquisition predicts earliest dissolution.
Highlights
Since Lenneberg’s (1967) landmark work on the Biological Foundations of Language, the fields of language acquisition, language deterioration, neuroscience, as well as the linguistic theory of a language faculty, have all developed exponentially
Through converging recent interdisciplinary advances, we are poised for new advances in our understanding of maturational processes involved in language acquisition; new advances in developmental theory of language acquisition but new advances in realization of brain–behavior relations in the area
Both linguistic and neurocognitive foundations lead us to the hypothesis that damage in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) area would cohere with deterioration of the integration of syntax and semantics, which our behavioral language data have suggested is compromised in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
Summary
Since Lenneberg’s (1967) landmark work on the Biological Foundations of Language, the fields of language acquisition, language deterioration, neuroscience (including study of the brain’s “language network”), as well as the linguistic theory of a language faculty, have all developed exponentially. Our brain imaging results cohere with our behavioral results documenting language loss in prodromal AD, allowing us to adumbrate selected brain-behavior relationships in language dissolution and to begin to identify the nature of language loss in prodromal AD We link these results to new independent discoveries on the ontogeny of the neural foundations for language in the child that are emerging from research led by Angela Friederici at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive & Brain Sciences (e.g., Friederici 2016, 2017, this issue). Our results advance our understanding of the true nature of maturational processes in language
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