Impaired coherence for semantic but not episodic autobiographical memory in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia

Autor: Brian Levine, Elizabeth Rochon, Bruna Seixas Lima, David F. Tang-Wai, Naida L. Graham, Carol Leonard, Sandra E. Black
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Cognitive Neuroscience
Memory
Episodic

Metacognition
Semantic dementia
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Context (language use)
Neuropsychological Tests
050105 experimental psychology
Primary progressive aphasia
03 medical and health sciences
bepress|Life Sciences|Neuroscience and Neurobiology
0302 clinical medicine
bepress|Life Sciences
medicine
Humans
Speech
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
General knowledge
bepress|Life Sciences|Neuroscience and Neurobiology|Cognitive Neuroscience
Autobiographical memory
PsyArXiv|Life Sciences
05 social sciences
medicine.disease
Semantics
Comprehension
PsyArXiv|Neuroscience|Cognitive Neuroscience
Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Aphasia
Primary Progressive

PsyArXiv|Neuroscience
Psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Sentence
Cognitive psychology
Zdroj: Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior. 123
ISSN: 1973-8102
Popis: Language deficits, including word-finding difficulties and impaired single-word comprehension, have been found in patients with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). These deficits characterize the linguistic abilities of patients with svPPA on a micro-linguistic level (word and sentence level). On a macro-linguistic level (discourse level), svPPA patients’ discourse has been described as “empty”. Few studies have considered the contribution of a linguistic impairment to the difficulty of producing autobiographical narratives. In the present study, we assessed svPPA patients’ discourse coherence during autobiographical narratives in order to characterize the nature of their speech on a macro-linguistic level and to investigate the relationship between discourse production and memory in a naturalistic context. We collected samples of discourse in which svPPA patients and healthy controls (matched in age, education, sex and handedness) reported autobiographical events. Their narratives were assessed with a rating scale to evaluate global coherence of discourse. The protocols were also analysed using the Autobiographical Interview method (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002) and categorized as episodic (information about events at a specific time and place), semantic (general knowledge), or supplementary details (metacognitive statements, repeated information, editorializing). Where possible, patients were assessed longitudinally at three time points over two years. Patients with svPPA produced a reduced number of episodic details, while the number of semantic details produced was comparable to controls. However, the episodic information produced by patients was coherent with the topic of discourse, while semantic information was not. These results suggest that svPPA patients produce semantic information comparable to controls in quantity but not quality, whereas the opposite is the case for episodic information.
Databáze: OpenAIRE