Presentation
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Language in people with cervical dystonia: Evidence of grammatical and specific semantic deficits.
Poster D51 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Patricia Gough1, Laura Mahady1, Shameer Rafee2, Michael Hutchinson2, Sean O'Riordan2, Fiadhnait O'Keeffe1,2, Jessica White1; 1School of Psychology, University College Dublin, 2Department of Neurology, St. Vincent’s University Hospital
Background: Cervical dystonia (CD) is a chronic neurological condition that is characterised by intermittent and/or sustained involuntary contractions of the neck muscles. Although historically considered a motor disorder, CD may present with subtle cognitive impairments. Like many motor disorders, CD is attributed to basal ganglia dysfunction. Basal ganglia dysfunction in other neurological conditions can lead to language impairments in the domains of phonological processing, grammar and syntax, and action semantics; as processing action words recruits the same cortical regions involved in executing the actions these words refer to. Despite this, language in people with CD (pwCD) remains unexplored. Objectives: The current study aimed to explore phonological, grammatical, and semantic language abilities in pwCD compared to neurologically healthy controls. Methods: 19 pwCD and 20 controls completed the Object and Colour subtests of the Rapid Automized Naming Task (RAN), the Test for Reception of Grammar-2 (TROG-2), and a lexical decision task with a masked priming paradigm that compared reaction times to words varying according to two factors- hand relatedness (hand-related, non-hand-related) and word category (verb, noun). Results: Compared to controls, pwCD were less accurate at grammatical comprehension on the TROG-2 (p<.05, n2=.15). There were no significant differences between pwCD and controls in phonological retrieval as measured by the RAN. PwCD demonstrated a specific semantic impairment for hand-related words, showing reduced masked priming effects for hand-related verbs and nouns compared to controls (p<.01). Priming effects for non-hand words in pwCD were comparable to that of controls (p=.13). Conclusion: The present study found significant evidence that pwCD perform worse on measures of grammar and action-related semantics. This provides evidence that the motor system may play an important role in language processing. Language represents a fundamental ability and thus language in pwCD is an important consideration for research and clinical practice.
Topic Areas: Disorders: Developmental,