Reduced syntactic recursion in spontaneous speech of Parkinson's disease patients

Autor: Julia Henkel, Christian Hartmann, Valentina Niccolai, Ruben van de Vijver, Alfons Schnitzler, Katja Biermann-Ruben
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Acta Psychologica, Vol 236, Iss , Pp 103931- (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0001-6918
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103931
Popis: Although characterized as a movement disorder, Parkinson's disease (PD) affects more than just the motor system. Within the heterogenous non-motor symptoms, language impairment is frequent but poorly understood beyond semantic processing.This study investigates the impact of PD on syntactic subordination in spontaneous language production. Fifteen PD patients in ON levodopa status narrated a short story guided by a set of pictures. Thirteen PD patients were also assessed in OFF levodopa status. Narrations were digitally recorded, subsequently transcribed and annotated, making the produced speech accessible to systematical quantitative analysis.Compared to a healthy matched control group, PD patients showed a significant reduction of subordinating structures while the number of non-embedding sentences remained unaffected. No significant effect comparing ON versus OFF levodopa status emerged. Our results suggest a contribution of the basal ganglia to language processing, such as syntactic composition, which, however, does not seem to be dopamine dependent.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals