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Brain Sciences
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Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia
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Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurolinguistics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 October 2023) | Viewed by 6542

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Maria Caterina Silveri

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Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Agostino Gemelli 1, I-20123 Milan, Italy
Interests: dementia; Parkinson and parkinsonism; aphasia; social cognition; semantics
Dr. Davide Quaranta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Agostino Gemelli 8, I-00168 Rome, Italy
Interests: neurolinguistics; semantics; Alzheimer’s disease; primary progressive aphasia; language
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Sonia Di Tella

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Agostino Gemelli 1, I-20123 Milan, Italy
Interests: Parkinson’s disease; executive functions; language; structural and functional neu-roimaging; emotional processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Speech disorders and aphasia are commonly documented in degenerative brain diseases. Their finding has clinical relevance under a diagnostic point of view (as for example in frontotemporal dementias- FTD) and also as predictor of disease progression, as for the progression from Subjective Cognitive Decline to Mild Cognitive Impairment to Dementia.

Language pathology in dementias also offers the opportunity to implement models of normal language, providing information complementary to that derived from stroke.

The extension of the atrophy that progressively encompasses both gray and white matter in parallel with the progressive decay of the various levels of linguistic organization, allows the various neural substrates to be correlated with specific linguistic sub-components, especially in terms of networks.

In the last decades, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic and computational analyses of language in dementia have been joined by increasingly sophisticated investigation techniques, principally of structural and functional neuroimaging, capable of defining the relationship between brain and language in ever greater detail, not only in terms of localization, but also of distribution and organization of neural networks.

This special issue of Brain Sciences is devoted to studies on language in dementia that may yield advancement in the understanding of normal and pathological language.

Prof. Dr. Maria Caterina Silveri
Dr. Davide Quaranta
Dr. Sonia Di Tella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • aphasia
  • neurodegenerative diseases
  • dementias
  • movement disorders
  • language
  • neurolinguistics
  • neuroimaging

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 833 KiB  
Article
A Multimodal Approach for Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment of Primary Progressive Aphasia (MAINSTREAM): A Study Protocol
by Maria Cotelli, Francesca Baglio, Rosa Manenti, Valeria Blasi, Daniela Galimberti, Elena Gobbi, Ilaria Pagnoni, Federica Rossetto, Emanuela Rotondo, Valentina Esposito, Roberto De Icco, Carla Giudice, Cristina Tassorelli, Eleonora Catricalà, Giulia Perini, Cristina Alaimo, Elena Campana, Luisa Benussi, Roberta Ghidoni, Giuliano Binetti, Tiziana Carandini and Stefano Francesco Cappaadd Show full author list remove Hide full author list
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(7), 1060; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13071060 - 12 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1345
Abstract
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a syndrome due to different neurodegenerative disorders selectively disrupting language functions. PPA specialist care is underdeveloped. There are very few specialists (neurologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, and speech therapists) and few hospital- or community-based services dedicated to the diagnosis and [...] Read more.
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a syndrome due to different neurodegenerative disorders selectively disrupting language functions. PPA specialist care is underdeveloped. There are very few specialists (neurologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, and speech therapists) and few hospital- or community-based services dedicated to the diagnosis and continuing care of people with PPA. Currently, healthcare systems struggle to provide adequate coverage of care that is too often fragmented, uncoordinated, and unresponsive to the needs of people with PPA and their families. Recently, attention has been gained by non-invasive brain stimulation techniques that allow a personalized treatment approach, such as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS). The MAINSTREAM trial looks forward to introducing and evaluating therapeutic innovations such as tDCS coupled with language therapy in rehabilitation settings. A Multimodal Approach for Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment of Primary Progressive Aphasia, MAINSTREAM (ID: 3430931) was registered in the clinicaltrials.gov database (identifier: NCT05730023) on 15 February 2023. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia)
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17 pages, 1092 KiB  
Article
Item-Level Scores on the Boston Naming Test as an Independent Predictor of Perirhinal Volume in Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment
by Matteo De Marco, Martina Bocchetta, Annalena Venneri and for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(5), 806; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050806 - 16 May 2023
Viewed by 1451
Abstract
We explored the methodological value of an item-level scoring procedure applied to the Boston Naming Test (BNT), and the extent to which this scoring approach predicts grey matter (GM) variability in regions that sustain semantic memory. Twenty-seven BNT items administered as part of [...] Read more.
We explored the methodological value of an item-level scoring procedure applied to the Boston Naming Test (BNT), and the extent to which this scoring approach predicts grey matter (GM) variability in regions that sustain semantic memory. Twenty-seven BNT items administered as part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were scored according to their “sensorimotor interaction” (SMI) value. Quantitative scores (i.e., the count of correctly named items) and qualitative scores (i.e., the average of SMI scores for correctly named items) were used as independent predictors of neuroanatomical GM maps in two sub-cohorts of 197 healthy adults and 350 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) participants. Quantitative scores predicted clusters of temporal and mediotemporal GM in both sub-cohorts. After accounting for quantitative scores, the qualitative scores predicted mediotemporal GM clusters in the MCI sub-cohort; clusters extended to the anterior parahippocampal gyrus and encompassed the perirhinal cortex. This was confirmed by a significant yet modest association between qualitative scores and region-of-interest-informed perirhinal volumes extracted post hoc. Item-level scoring of BNT performance provides complementary information to standard quantitative scores. The concurrent use of quantitative and qualitative scores may help profile lexical–semantic access more precisely, and might help detect changes in semantic memory that are typical of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia)
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16 pages, 2437 KiB  
Article
The Dynamic Interplay between Loss of Semantic Memory and Semantic Learning Capacity: Insight from Neologisms Learning in Semantic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia
by Simona Luzzi, Sara Baldinelli, Chiara Fiori, Mauro Morelli and Guido Gainotti
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(5), 788; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050788 - 11 May 2023
Viewed by 1399
Abstract
Semantic Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (svPPA) has often been considered as a loss of knowledge stored in semantic memory, but might also be due to a general disruption of mechanisms allowing the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of semantic memories. In order to [...] Read more.
Semantic Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (svPPA) has often been considered as a loss of knowledge stored in semantic memory, but might also be due to a general disruption of mechanisms allowing the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of semantic memories. In order to assess any parallelism in svPPA patients between loss of semantic knowledge and inability to acquire new semantic information, we administered a battery of semantic learning tasks to healthy individuals and svPPA patients, where they were requested to learn new conceptual representations and new word forms, and to associate the former with the latter. A strong relation was found between loss of semantic knowledge and disruption of semantic learning: (a) patients with severe svPPA had the lowest scores in the semantic learning tasks; (b) significant correlations were found between scores obtained in semantic learning tasks and scores obtained in semantic memory disorders in svPPA patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia)
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Review

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19 pages, 698 KiB  
Review
Concrete and Abstract Concepts in Primary Progressive Aphasia and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Scoping Review
by Martina Mancano and Costanza Papagno
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(5), 765; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050765 - 5 May 2023
Viewed by 1589
Abstract
The concreteness effect (CE), namely a better performance with concrete compared to abstract concepts, is a constant feature in healthy people, and it usually increases in persons with aphasia (PWA). However, a reversal of the CE has been reported in patients affected by [...] Read more.
The concreteness effect (CE), namely a better performance with concrete compared to abstract concepts, is a constant feature in healthy people, and it usually increases in persons with aphasia (PWA). However, a reversal of the CE has been reported in patients affected by the semantic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (svPPA), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by anterior temporal lobe (ATL) atrophy. The present scoping review aims at identifying the extent of evidence regarding the abstract/concrete contrast in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and svPPA and associated brain atrophy. Five online databases were searched up to January 2023 to identify papers where both concrete and abstract concepts were investigated. Thirty-one papers were selected and showed that while in patients with AD, concrete words were better processes than abstract ones, in most svPPA patients, there was a reversal of the CE, with five studies correlating the size of this effect with ATL atrophy. Furthermore, the reversal of CE was associated with category-specific impairments (living things) and with a selective deficit of social words. Future work is needed to disentangle the role of specific portions of the ATL in concept representation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Speech Loss from Dementia? Understanding Aphasia)
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