Verbal Naming Research Articles

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Paired With Verb Network Strengthening Treatment Improves Verb Naming in Primary Progressive Aphasia: A Case Series.

There are few evidence-based treatments for language deficits in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). PPA treatments are often adopted from the poststroke aphasia literature. The poststroke aphasia literature has shown promising results using Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST), a behavioral therapy that focuses on improving naming by producing verbs and their arguments in phrases and sentences. Emerging research in poststroke aphasia and PPA has shown promising results pairing behavioral language therapy with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). This study used a double-blind, within-subjects, sham-controlled crossover design to study the effect of anodal tDCS applied to left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) plus VNeST versus VNeST plus sham stimulation in two individuals with nonfluent variant PPA and one individual with logopenic variant PPA. Participants received two phases of treatment, each with 15 1-hr sessions of VNeST. One phase paired VNeST with tDCS stimulation, and one with sham. For each phase, language testing was conducted at baseline, and at 1 week and 8 weeks posttreatment conclusion. For each participant, treatment efficacy was evaluated for each treatment phase by comparing the mean change in accuracy between baseline and the follow-up time points for naming trained verbs (primary outcome measure), untrained verbs, and nouns on the Object and Action Naming Battery. Mean change from baseline was also directly compared between tDCS and sham phases at each time point. Results revealed a different pattern of outcomes for each of the participants. A tDCS advantage was not found for trained verbs for any participant. Two participants with nonfluent variant PPA had a tDCS advantage for generalization to naming of untrained verbs, which was apparent at 1 week and 8 weeks posttreatment. One participant with nonfluent variant also showed evidence of generalization to sentence production in the tDCS phase. VNeST plus anodal tDCS stimulation of left IFG shows promising results for improving naming in PPA.

Naming vs. non-naming treatment in aphasia in a group setting–A randomized controlled trial

IntroductionAnomia affects numerous persons with aphasia. Treatment effects of anomia group therapy have been reported, but the evidence is not comprehensive. This study aimed to explore treatment effects of a naming treatment compared with a non-naming treatment delivered in a group setting. MethodsIn a randomized controlled trial, 17 participants with chronic poststroke aphasia underwent group therapy, 2 hours a session, 3 times per week, for a total of 20 hours. The treatment given in the naming group was modified semantic feature analysis (SFA). Treatment content in the non-naming group comprised auditory comprehension, copying text, and reading. The primary outcome measure was accuracy in confrontation naming of participant-selected trained nouns and verbs. Generalization effects were evaluated in single-word naming, connected speech, and everyday communication. ResultsParticipants in both groups significantly improved their naming of trained items. There were no differences between the groups. The treatment effect did not remain at follow-up 10 weeks after therapy. No other statistically significant changes occurred in either group. ConclusionsGroup intervention can improve naming ability in individuals with chronic aphasia. However, similar treatment effects can be achieved using a non-naming treatment as using a naming treatment, such as modified SFA. Further research is warranted to identify the most important elements of anomia group therapy.

Differences in Odor Identification in Early-Onset and Late-Onset Depression.

(1) Background: Odor identification (OI) dysfunction is a potential predictor of developing dementia in late life depression (LLD). However, it is not clear whether patients with early onset depression (EOD) and late onset depression (LOD) may exhibit different OI dysfunctions. The aim of this study was to compare OI between EOD patients and LOD patients and its relationship with cognitive function. (2) Methods: A total of 179 patients with LLD and 189 normal controls were recruited. Participants underwent clinical assessment, olfactory testing, and comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. The OI scores of EOD patients and LOD patients were compared, and correlation analyses and mediation analyses were used to explore the relationship between OI and cognition. (3) Result: LOD patients exhibited lower OI scores than EOD patients and normal controls (NCs). Additionally, the LOD patients exhibited a higher percentage of OI dysfunction than the EOD patients. Moreover, OI scores were associated with global cognition, memory, language, and visuospatial ability in the EOD group (p < 0.05) but were not associated with any cognitive score in the LOD patients (p > 0.05). Finally, the scores of the Auditory Verbal Learning Test Immediate recall and Boston Naming Test exhibited a partially mediating effect on the difference in OI scores between the EOD and LOD patients. (4) Conclusions: LOD patients exhibited worse OI than EOD patients, and their difference in OI was mediated by their memory and language function.

Neural mechanisms and time course of the age-related word frequency effect in language production

<p id="p00005">The word frequency effect refers to the phenomenon of processing high-frequency words faster and more accurately than processing low-frequency words in language production. As the age increases in adulthood, the word frequency effect will also change. The Transmission Deficit Hypothesis suggests that ageing weakens the connection between the stored language information nodes, and the word frequency effect increases further. In contrast, according to the Rank Frequency Account, the relative word frequency and the word frequency effect remain unchanged; thus, it can be deduced that ageing does not change the word frequency effect. Furthermore, the Logogen Model assumes that the word frequency decreases with an increase in experience and contact, thereby predicting a reduction of the word frequency effect as the age increases. <p id="p00008">There are differences in the age-related word frequency effect in language production. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the word frequency effect among the elder is greater than that among the young. However, some studies have shown that elderly people have less or no difference in the word frequency effect in comparison with young people, suggesting that the differences in the word frequency effect depending on age may be caused by differences in tasks, stimuli, and individual cognitive abilities. However, the word frequency effect is relatively stable throughout the life cycle. More precisely, it is more difficult to name low-frequency words than high-frequency words for both the young and the elder. There is an age difference between the young and the elder in processing low-frequency words. Compared with the elder, the younger people have higher accuracy and higher activation levels in language-related brain areas (e.g., insula and middle temporal gyrus) and cognitive control-related brain areas (e.g., cingulate cortex). Moreover, there are differences in the word frequency effect between the verb naming task and the noun naming task. In the action picture naming task, high-frequency words activate specific brain regions, whereas in the object naming task, only low-frequency words activate of specific brain regions. <p id="p00007">The word frequency effect may occur in different stages of language production. Previous studies have demonstrated that the word frequency effect may occur in the lemma selection, the connection stage between lemma selection and phonological code retrieval or in the phonological code retrieval in spoken language production. The word frequency effect in writing production appears later than in spoken language production and may occur in the orthographic word form. In addition, there are differences in the time course of the word frequency effect between the younger and older individuals. For the elder, with an increase in age a decline in general cognitive ability, the time course of the word frequency effect is slightly delayed when compared with the young. <p id="p00006">Some studies also explored the change in the word frequency effect in patients with degenerative diseases, suggesting that it can be used as a sensitive indicator for early detection and diagnosis of related diseases. The word frequency effect and the acquisition age effect both impact on the word processing, however, during different stages. The acquisition age affects the visual and semantic processing of the vocabulary, whereas the word frequency effect merely acts on vocabulary retrieval. In the future, we can further distinguish the influence of word frequency effect from the age of acquisition effect on ageing effect of language production, and extend the studies to patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

SpaVerb-WN—A megastudy of naming times for 4562 Spanish verbs: Effects of psycholinguistic and motor content variables

Several studies have been carried out in various languages to explore the role of the main psycholinguistic variables in word naming, mainly in nouns. However, reading of verbs has not been explored to the same extent, despite the differences that have been found between the processing of nouns and verbs. To reduce this research gap, we present here SpaVerb-WN, a megastudy of word naming in Spanish, with response times (RT) for 4562 verbs. RT were obtained from at least 20 healthy adult participants in a reading-aloud task. Several research questions on the role of syllable frequency, word length, neighbourhood, frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and the novel variable ‘motor content’ in verb naming were also examined. Linear mixed-effects model analyses indicated that (1) RT increase in with increasing word length and with decreasing neighbourhood size, (2) syllable frequency does not show a significant effect on RT, (3) AoA mediates the effect of motor content, with a positive slope of motor content at low AoA scores and a negative slope at high AoA scores, and (4) there is an interaction between word frequency and AoA, in which the AoA effect for low-frequency verbs gradually decreases as frequency increases. The results are discussed in relation to existing evidence and in the context of the consistency of the spelling–sound mappings in Spanish.

Linguistic Competence in Early Childhood Education as a Predictor of Verbal Naming Speed.

This study determined the predictive value of linguistic competence in children in Early Childhood Education for verbal naming speed. The participants were 86 pupils in the second Early Childhood Education cycle. They were evaluated with WPPSI-IV Wechsler Preschool & Primary Scale of Intelligence (Verbal Comprehension, VC) and Vocabulary Acquisition, VA; Childish Vocabulary Test (Vavel) and the Rapid and Automatic Naming Test. Children who had high scores in the Verbal Comprehension Index and Vocabulary Acquisition spent less time doing the verbal naming task. Linguistic competence predicted verbal naming speed, with Vavel having the strongest correlation. Linguistic competence of children in Early Childhood Education allows us to predict their aptitude for verbal naming. Lexical-semantic knowledge was linguistic competence dimension with the highest predictive value for the Verbal Naming Task. Automatic Naming and Verbal Comprehension depend on the same cerebral area, Wernicke's area.

A-157 Lexical-Semantic Analysis of Verbal Naming Test Performance in Older Adult Veterans

Abstract Objective The Verbal Naming Test (VNT), a validated non-visual measure of word-finding ability in older adults, was designed to include words from distinct lexical (i.e., verbs vs. nouns) and semantic (i.e., action vs. object) categories to better capture various naming deficits. This study examined specific contributions of lexical and semantic categories to the convergent and discriminant validity of the VNT, and to how well it detects Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Method The sample of older Veterans included 157 healthy controls (mean age = 74.23, SD = 6.67; range:60–89) and 39 diagnosed with MCI (mean age = 72.97, SD = 8.24; range:60–88). VNT item subscales were constructed for verbs/actions (ActionW) and nouns/objects presented either with (Obj+) or without (ObjW) an action component in the prompt. Correlations were calculated between VNT total/subscales and several other neuropsychological measures. ROC analyses compared relative contributions of each VNT subscale in detecting MCI. Results The ActionW subscale showed poor reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.303) and did not correlate with any other measures. The ObjW, and Obj + subscales showed better reliability (Cronbach’s alpha&amp;gt;0.62) and correlated with age, measures of memory, and the Boston Naming Test. The Area Under the Curve (AUC) for detection of MCI was as follows: ActionW = 0.616; Obj + =0.635; ObjW = 0.689; and 50items = 0.690. Conclusions Lexical and semantic categories differentially affect VNT detection of MCI in older veterans. Object words, especially those without associated action components, provide the best measurement scale. Although still clinically relevant in detecting MCI, the poor reliability of verbs/action words suggests revising the VNT may improve its psychometric properties. Future research should replicate these results in a clinical sample.

Detection of Major and Mild Neurocognitive Disorder with the Verbal Naming Test

The Verbal Naming Test (VNT) is an auditory-based measure of naming or word finding. The current multisite study sought to evaluate the reliability and validity of the VNT in the detection of major and mild neurocognitive disorder (NCD). This study analyzed clinical data from two outpatient neuropsychology clinics (N = 188 and N = 77) and a geriatric primary care clinic (N = 104). Cronbach's alpha and Spearman correlations with other measures were calculated. ROC analyses were used to calculate sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, and negative predictive power for the detection of major and mild NCD per DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) criteria. The VNT was found to have strong reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .90) and high convergent validity with a commonly used picture-naming task (NAB Naming, Spearman's rho = .65, p < .001). The VNT showed good sensitivity and specificity for the detection of NCDs, particularly major NCD, with an area under the curve of .85, sensitivity of .80, and specificity of .75. A possible discontinue rule is also suggested for clinicians to use. These findings provide compelling evidence for the use of the VNT to detect neurocognitive impairment in a clinical setting. The VNT provides a reliable alternative to picture-naming tasks, which may be advantageous when working with visually impaired patients or conducting evaluations over telehealth.

Do gestures have a hand in verb retrieval? Investigation of iconic and non-iconic gestures in aphasia

ABSTRACT Background According to the lexical retrieval hypothesis (LRH), the primary function of gestures is to facilitate word retrieval. Thus, individuals with aphasia (IWA) might benefit from gestures in case of word retrieval impairments. However, the facilitative effect of gestures on word finding is still unclear since most facilitation/treatment studies combined gesture with linguistic cues. The LRH claims that the semantic content of a gesture is decisive for a facilitation effect on word retrieval. However, it remains unclear if and how IWA can perform adequate iconic gestures, especially in the presence of hemiparesis or limb apraxia. Thus, in the present study, we systematically studied the effect of iconic and non-iconic gesture production on oral verb naming in IWA and analysed the iconicity of gestures produced by IWA and healthy controls. Aims In the present study, we aimed (1) to investigate the potential facilitation effect of iconic and non-iconic gestures on verb retrieval in IWA and (2) to examine the IWA’s ability to produce adequate iconic gestures. Methods & Procedures Six IWA with impairments in naming verbs arising from a phonological, a lexical-semantic, or a combined deficit participated in a multiple single-case study targeting oral verb production. In the first experiment, IWA were asked to name pictures and to simultaneously perform either a relevant iconic gesture, a non-iconic gesture, or no gesture at all. In the second experiment, the video-recorded gestures produced during verb naming in the iconic gesture condition were rated for iconicity and compared to the iconicity of iconic gestures produced by 12 language-unimpaired controls. Results The accuracy in oral naming of verbs (Experiment 1) did not differ significantly between all conditions. Most IWA (n = 5) were able to produce iconic gestures, irrespective of hemiparesis or limb apraxia, since the iconicity ratings did not differ significantly from language-unimpaired controls (Experiment 2). Conclusions In contrast to the general assumption of the LRH, no gesture facilitation effect was observed in the verb naming performance of IWA. Moreover, the majority of the IWA could perform iconic gestures in a similar way as language-unimpaired participants despite the presence of a hemiparesis or limb apraxia. Hence, the absence of a facilitation effect in the iconic gesture condition seems not to originate from an inability to produce adequate iconic gestures. Further research with more IWA is required in order to replicate our results.

Concurrent predictors of word reading and reading comprehension for 9-year-olds with Williams syndrome

We examined the cognitive, language, and instructional factors associated with reading ability in Williams syndrome (WS). Seventy 9-year-olds with WS completed standardized measures of real-word reading, pseudoword decoding, reading comprehension, phonological skills, listening comprehension, nonverbal reasoning, visual-spatial ability, verbal working memory, rapid naming, and vocabulary. Reading instruction method was determined from school records and interviews with parents and teachers. Similar to prior findings for individuals with WS, reading ability varied widely, ranging from inability to read any words to reading comprehension at age level. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the primary concurrent predictor of word reading ability was reading instruction method, with a systematic phonics approach associated with considerably better performance than other reading instruction approaches. Phonological processing skills—as assessed by a composite of phonological awareness and verbal short-term memory—also contributed significant unique variance to word reading ability, as did visual-spatial ability. The concurrent predictors of reading comprehension were single-word reading and listening comprehension. These findings indicate that the factors that predict concurrent early word reading and reading comprehension abilities for children with WS are consistent with previous findings for typically developing children and that the Simple View of Reading applies to children with WS. Children with WS benefit strongly from systematic phonics instruction regardless of IQ. Instruction focused on improving listening comprehension is likely to improve reading comprehension, especially as word reading skills increase.

Dyadic conversation training in Mandarin for bilinguals with aphasia and their communication partners

ABSTRACT Background Treatment outcomes for functional communication, and for generalisation across languages and linguistic levels, remain mixed for bilinguals with aphasia (BWAs). Most studies on rehabilitation of BWAs report impairment-based approaches for participants with two broad similar Indo-European languages, but it remains unclear whether benefits extend to the untreated language or linguistic levels when the BWA speaks linguistically dissimilar languages. Furthermore, outcomes for communication-based approaches, where the components mirror everyday conversations and functional communication more closely, have rarely been examined in BWAs. Aim To examine the efficacy of Better Conversations with Aphasia (BCA), a dyadic communication-based treatment, in Mandarin for BWAs – direct treatment effects on conversations, impact on functional communication and emotional well-being, and generalisation both within and across languages. Methods Two Mandarin English-speaking bilingual adults with non-fluent aphasia (mild–moderate-to-severe) and their communication partner (CP) received BCA conducted in Mandarin for 1–1.5 h twice-weekly sessions over 10 weeks. The frequency of facilitators and barriers in conversation samples, questionnaires on functional communication and emotional well-being, a picture description task, and confrontation naming of nouns and verbs in both treated and untreated languages, were all assessed at baseline, post-treatment, and post-maintenance. Results Facilitators and barriers - Both BWAs and their CPs showed significant decreases in barrier-behavior frequencies, but P01 also showed a significant reduction in the use of facilitators. Functional Communication/Well-being - P01 reported positive effects for functional communication and emotional well-being, but P02 reported negative effects for both. No significant changes in the CPs’ ratings of the BWAs’ functional communication. Discourse - P01’s Mandarin narrative production showed no significant improvement but speech rate and efficiency improved for English picture descriptions. P02’s Mandarin picture descriptions contained significantly more words produced at a slower speech rate while significant gains in meaningfulness and efficiency were found in her English descriptions. Single-word - P01 showed improved confrontation naming accuracy for nouns (Mandarin only) and verbs (Mandarin and English), whereas P02 only showed significantly increased accuracy for verbs in English. Conclusions BCA treatment for two Mandarin English-speaking BWAs replicated earlier reports of positive direct treatment effects for monolingual PWAs, particularly the reduction of behaviors that hinder conversation success. Moreover, the generalisation, both within and across linguistically dissimilar languages, provides evidence for shared language networks that could be exploited by clinicians working with BWAs. The potential impact of culture, family context, linguistic structures, and cognitive deficits, on treatment outcome is also discussed.

Dissociating nouns and verbs in temporal and perisylvian networks: Evidence from neurodegenerative diseases

Naming of nouns and verbs can be selectively impaired in neurological disorders, but the specificity of the neural and cognitive correlates of such dissociation remains unclear. Functional imaging and stroke research sought to identify cortical regions selectively recruited for nouns versus verbs, yet findings are inconsistent.The present study investigated this issue in neurodegenerative diseases known to selectively affect different brain networks, thus providing new critical evidence of network specificity. We examined naming performances on nouns and verbs in 146 patients with different neurodegenerative syndromes (Primary Progressive Aphasia – PPA, Alzheimer's disease – AD, and behavioral variant Frontotemporal Dementia – FTD) and 30 healthy adults. We then correlated naming scores with MRI-derived cortical thickness values as well as with performances in semantic and syntactic tasks, across all subjects.Results indicated that patients with the semantic variant PPA named significantly fewer nouns than verbs. Instead, nonfluent/agrammatic PPA patients named fewer verbs than nouns. Across all subjects, performance on nouns (adjusted for verbs) specifically correlated with cortical atrophy in left anterior temporal regions, and performance on verbs (adjusted for nouns) with atrophy in left inferior and middle frontal, inferior parietal and posterior temporal regions. Furthermore, lower lexical-semantic abilities correlated with deficits in naming both nouns and verbs, while lower syntactic abilities only correlated with naming verbs.Our results show that different neural and cognitive mechanisms underlie naming of specific grammatical categories in neurodegenerative diseases. Importantly, our findings showed that verb processing depends on a widespread perisylvian networks, suggesting that some regions might be involved in processing different types of action knowledge. These findings have important implications for early differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders.

Lexical category differences in bilingual picture naming: Implications for models of lexical representation

AbstractBilingual speakers are less accurate and slower than monolinguals in word production. This bilingual cost has been demonstrated primarily for nouns. This study compared verb and noun retrieval to better understand bilingual lexical representation and test alternate hypotheses about bilingual cost. Picture naming speeds from highly proficient English–Spanish bilinguals showed a smaller bilingual cost for verbs compared to nouns. In Experiment 1, picture naming speeds were influenced by name agreement, age-of-acquisition and word length. Additionally, noun (but not verb) naming speed was predicted by word frequency. Experiment 2 examined two potential explanations for the smaller bilingual cost for verbs: verbs experience weaker cross-language interference (measured by translation speed) and smaller frequency effects. Both these predictions were confirmed, showing crucial differences between verbs and nouns and suggesting that cross-language facilitation rather than interference influences bilingual lexical retrieval, and that the frequency lag account of bilingual cost is more applicable to nouns than to verbs. We propose a Bilingual Integrated Grammatical Category model for highly proficient bilinguals to represent lexical category differences.

Occurrence of Reading Skills in a National Age Cohort of Norwegian Children with Down Syndrome: What Characterizes Those Who Develop Early Reading Skills?

Children with Down syndrome are at risk of reading difficulties. Reading skills are crucial for social and academic development, and thus, understanding the nature of reading in this clinical group is important. This longitudinal study investigated the occurrence of reading skills in a Norwegian national age cohort of 43 children with Down syndrome from the beginning of first grade to third grade. Data were collected to determine which characteristics distinguished those who developed early reading skills from those who did not. The children′s decoding skills, phonological awareness, nonverbal mental ability, vocabulary, verbal short-term memory, letter knowledge and rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance were measured annually. The results showed that 18.6% of the children developed early decoding skills by third grade. Prior to onset, children who developed decoding skills had a significantly superior vocabulary and letter knowledge than non-readers after controlling for nonverbal mental abilities. These findings indicate that early specific training that focuses on vocabulary and knowledge of words and letters may be particularly effective in promoting reading onset in children with Down syndrome.

Effects of concurrent action and object naming treatment on naming skills and functional brain activation patterns in primary progressive aphasia: An fMRI study with a case-series design

Individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) exhibit differential impairment patterns in noun and verb naming, but it remains unclear whether anomia treatment results in similar improvements in noun and verb naming. Therefore, we examined the immediate and long-term (3-months post-treatment) behavioral and neural effects of an anomia treatment on object and action naming skills in PPA. A case-series design was utilized involving two individuals with PPA. Object and action words were trained concurrently and probed regularly using word lists matched on a number of lexical characteristics. One participant showed improvements in all word categories with different effect sizes whereas the other participant demonstrated improved naming only on trained object words. Treatment-induced fMRI changes were found in both hemispheres, with distinct patterns observed across participants. Further research is needed to better understand the effects of residual language and cognitive skills on behavioral and neurophysiological outcomes following anomia treatment for PPA.

The Effectiveness of Verbal-Gestural Treatment on Verb Naming in Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of verbal-gestural treatment on verb production in patients with acute aphasia. Method Treatment was delivered during inpatient stay to four participants using a single-subject design. Results All patients demonstrated improvements in verbal expression. Some patients' improvements generalized to untrained verbs and nouns. Conclusions This study indicates verbal-gestural treatment can be an effective treatment model for acute aphasia in a hospital environment. Concurrent deficits resulting from stroke may impact the success with verbal-gestural treatment at this acute phase of recovery.

Rational Adaptation in Using Conceptual Versus Lexical Information in Adults With Aphasia.

The information theoretic principle of rational adaptation predicts that individuals with aphasia adapt to their language impairments by relying more heavily on comparatively unimpaired non-linguistic knowledge to communicate. This prediction was examined by assessing the extent to which adults with chronic aphasia due to left-hemisphere stroke rely more on conceptual rather than lexical information during verb retrieval, as compared to age-matched neurotypical controls. A primed verb naming task examined the degree of facilitation each participant group received from either conceptual event-related or lexical collocate cues, compared to unrelated baseline cues. The results provide evidence that adults with aphasia received amplified facilitation from conceptual cues compared to controls, whereas healthy controls received greater facilitation from lexical cues. This indicates that adaptation to alternative and relatively unimpaired information may facilitate successful word retrieval in aphasia. Implications for models of rational adaptation and clinical neurorehabilitation are discussed.

Increased links between language and motor areas: A proof-of-concept study on resting-state functional connectivity following Personalized Observation, Execution and Mental imagery therapy in chronic aphasia

A tight coupling of language and motor processes has been established, which is consistent with embodied cognition theory. However, very few therapies have been designed to exploit the synergy between motor and language processes to help rehabilitate people with aphasia (PWA). Moreover, the underlying mechanisms supporting the efficacy of such approaches remain unknown.Previous work in our laboratory has demonstrated that personalized observation, execution, and mental imagery therapy (POEM)—a new therapy using three sensorimotor strategies to trigger action verb naming—leads to significant improvements in verb retrieval in PWA. Moreover, these improvements were supported by significant activations in language and sensorimotor processing areas, which further reinforce the role of both processes in language recovery (Durand et al., 2018). The present study investigates resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) changes following POEM in a pre-/post-POEM therapy design. A whole brain network functional connectivity approach was used to assess and describe changes in rsFC in a group of four PWA, who were matched and compared with four healthy controls (HC).Results showed increased rsFC in PWA within and between visuo-motor and language areas (right cuneal cortex—left supracalcarin (SCC) cortex/right precentral gyrus (PreCG)—left lingual gyrus (LG)) and between areas involved in action processing (right anterior parahippocampal gyrus (aPaHC)—left superior parietal lobule (SPL). In comparison to HC, the PWA group showed increased rsFC between the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left thalamus, which are areas involved in lexico-semantic processing. This proof-of-concept study suggests that the sensorimotor and language strategies used in POEM may induce modifications in large-scale networks, probably derived from the integration of visual and sensorimotor systems to sustain action naming, which is consistent with the embodied cognition theory.

Case study: A selective tactile naming deficit for letters and numbers due to interhemispheric disconnection

The role of white matter pathways in cognition is a topic of active investigation that is vital to both the fields of clinical neurology and cognitive neuroscience. White matter pathways provide critical connectivity amongst numerous specialized brain regions thereby enabling higher level cognition. While the effects of dissections and lesions of the corpus callosum have been reported, it is less understood how unilateral focal white matter lesions may impact cognitive processes. Here, we report a unique case study in which a small left lateralized stroke in the white matter adjacent to the body of the corpus callosum selectively impaired the ability to name letters and numbers presented to the ipsilesional, left hand. Naming of letters, numbers and objects was tested in both the visual and tactile modalities in both hands. Diffusion-weighted imaging showed a marked reduction in white matter pathway integrity through the body of the corpus callosum. Clinically, this case highlights the significant impact that a focal white matter lesion can have on higher-level cognition, specifically the integration of verbal and tactile information. Moreover, this case adds to prior reports on tactile agnosia by including DTI imaging data and emphasizing the role that white matter pathways through the body of the corpus callosum play in integrating tactile input from the right hemisphere with verbal naming capabilities of the left hemisphere. Finally, the findings also provoke fresh insight into alternative strategies for rehabilitating cognitive functioning when structural connectivity may be compromised.

Revisiting Aspect in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease: Evidence From Greek

The study investigates the ability of Greek-speaking individuals diagnosed with mild Alzheimer's Disease (mAD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to produce verbs that vary with respect to their grammatical and lexical aspect. While grammatical aspect has been examined in aphasia, there are only a few studies dealing with this in neurodegenerative conditions and their findings are contradictory. Motivated by this, we further investigate aspect by examining not only grammatical but lexical aspect as well and how their semantic and temporal features affect mAD and MCI individuals' performance. Thus, the major innovation of the study is that it examines aspect not only as a functional feature but also as a lexical variable, something addressed for the first time in the literature. We also address whether grammatical aspect interacts with lexical aspect and with time reference. Finally, by looking at Greek, we further contribute to cross-linguistic perspective of aspect investigation. 11 MCI and 11 mAD individuals participated in a picture naming task, targeting the investigation of lexical aspect, and a sentence completion task, targeting the investigation of grammatical aspect and its interaction with lexical aspect and time reference. Both groups of participants were found to be impaired in both tasks when compared to healthy controls. In the naming task, both group and lexical aspect were significant predictors for participants' performance. Specifically, more impaired performance was found in states (believe), achievements (break), and semelfactives (hit) compared to activities (run) and accomplishments (build) for both AD and MCI participants. In the sentence completion task, apart from group, neither grammatical or lexical aspect nor tense were significant predictors for participants' performance. While results indicate that both grammatical and lexical aspect are impaired in AD and MCI, a closer look suggests a dissociation regarding the temporal feature of duration. Specifically, as grammatical feature, duration does not appear to affect participants' choice between perfective and imperfective aspect. As a lexical variable, on the other hand, and as part of the lexical representation of a verb, duration (together with internal structure) appears to play a role in verb naming. Finally, the lack of interaction between lexical and grammatical aspect also indicates that these two subsystems can be affected differentially.