A Cognitive Overview of Limb Apraxia

Bartolo, Angela; Ham, Heidi Stieglitz

doi:10.1007/s11910-016-0675-0

Cited by 30 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“… 161 Regardless, investigating the communicative aspect of pantomime could open new avenues on the interaction between tool use, semantic knowledge and theory of mind. 46 , 237 …”

Section: From Language To Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Reynaud

Baumard

Rossetti

et al. 2021

Brain Communications

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Pantomime has a long tradition in clinical neuropsychology of apraxia. It has been much more used by researchers and clinicians to assess tool-use disorders than real tool use. Nevertheless, it remains incompletely understood and has given rise to controversies, such as the involvement of the left inferior parietal lobe or the nature of the underlying cognitive processes. The present article offers a comprehensive framework, with the aim of specifying the neural and cognitive bases of pantomime. To do so, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of brain-lesion, neuroimaging, and behavioral studies about pantomime and other related tasks (i.e., real tool use, imitation of meaningless postures, and semantic knowledge). The first key finding is that the area PF (Area PF complex) within the left inferior parietal lobe is crucially involved in both pantomime and real tool use as well as in the kinematics component of pantomime. The second key finding is the absence of a well-defined neural substrate for the posture component of pantomime (both grip errors and body-part-as-tool responses). The third key finding is the role played by the intraparietal sulcus in both pantomime and imitation of meaningless postures. The fourth key finding is that the left angular gyrus seems to be critical in the production of motor actions directed toward the body. The fifth key finding is that performance on pantomime is strongly correlated with the severity of semantic deficits. Taken together, these findings invite us to offer a neurocognitive model of pantomime, which provides an integrated alternative to the two hypotheses that dominate the field: The gesture-engram hypothesis and the communicative hypothesis. More specifically, this model assumes that technical reasoning (notably the left area PF), the motor-control system (notably the intraparietal sulcus), body structural description (notably the left angular gyrus), semantic knowledge (notably the polar temporal lobes) and potentially theory of mind (notably the middle prefrontal cortex) work in concert to produce pantomime. The original features of this model open new avenues for understanding the neurocognitive bases of pantomime, emphasizing that pantomime is a communicative task that nevertheless originates in specific tool-use (not motor-related) cognitive processes.

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“… 161 Regardless, investigating the communicative aspect of pantomime could open new avenues on the interaction between tool use, semantic knowledge and theory of mind. 46 , 237 …”

Section: From Language To Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Reynaud

Baumard

Rossetti

et al. 2021

Brain Communications

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“…In terms of cognitive demands, some studies identified the role of working memory skills 6 or motor imagery 7 in Pantomimes, whereas Intransitive gestures are supposed to rely on social cognitive abilities 8,9 . Halsband and collaborators 10 found that patients with left parietal lesion had more difficulty to perform Intransitive and Pantomime gestures toward the body than those performed away from the body.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gestures convey different physiological responses when performed toward and away from the body

Bartolo

Claisse

Gallo

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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We assessed the sympathetic and parasympathetic activation associated to the observation of Pantomime (i.e. the mime of the use of a tool) and Intransitive gestures (i.e. expressive) performed toward (e.g. a comb and “thinking”) and away from the body (e.g. key and “come here”) in a group of healthy participants while both pupil dilation (N = 31) and heart rate variability (N = 33; HF-HRV) were recorded. Large pupil dilation was observed in both Pantomime and Intransitive gestures toward the body; whereas an increase of the vagal suppression was observed in Intransitive gestures away from the body but not in those toward the body. Our results suggest that the space where people act when performing a gesture has an impact on the physiological responses of the observer in relation to the type of social communicative information that the gesture direction conveys, from a more intimate (toward the body) to a more interactive one (away from the body).

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“…Yet, this may indicate that diagnosing ideational apraxia in dementia is not sufficient as tool use disorders may be the consequence of a deficit of semantic memory (see, e.g., Ochipa, Rothi, & Heilman, ), planning skills (Poeck, ), inference of function from structure (Spatt et al ., ) or motor dysfunction. Recent works also suggested that recognition of gestures may call for social cognition in some instances (Carmo, Rumiati, & Vallesi, ) which questions the nature of apraxia when additional cognitive deficits are observed (Bartolo & Stieglitz Ham, ). Although it was beyond the scope of this study, it should also be acknowledged that there is still debate between the reasoning‐based approach proposed here and a memory‐based approach according to which tool manipulation relies on stored object–action associations (Rumiati, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tool use in neurodegenerative diseases: Planning or technical reasoning?

Baumard

Lesourd

Remigereau

et al. 2017

Journal of Neuropsychology

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Recent works showed that tool use can be impaired in stroke patients because of either planning or technical reasoning deficits, but these two hypotheses have not yet been compared in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. The aim of this study was to address the relationships between real tool use, mechanical problem-solving, and planning skills in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 32), semantic dementia (SD, n = 16), and corticobasal syndrome (CBS, n = 9). Patients were asked to select and use ten common tools, to solve three mechanical problems, and to complete the Tower of London test. Motor function and episodic memory were controlled using the Purdue Pegboard Test and the BEC96 questionnaire, respectively. A data-transformation method was applied to avoid ceiling effects, and single-case analysis was performed based on raw scores and completion time. All groups demonstrated either impaired or slowed tool use. Planning deficits were found only in the AD group. Mechanical problem-solving deficits were observed only in the AD and CBS groups. Performance in the Tower of London test was the best predictor of tool use skills in the AD group, suggesting these patients had general rather than mechanical problem-solving deficits. Episodic memory seemed to play little role in performance. Motor dysfunction tended to be associated with tool use skills in CBS patients, while tool use disorders are interpreted as a consequence of the semantic loss in SD in line with previous works. These findings may encourage caregivers to set up disease-centred interventions.

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A Cognitive Overview of Limb Apraxia

Cited by 30 publications

References 75 publications

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Gestures convey different physiological responses when performed toward and away from the body

Tool use in neurodegenerative diseases: Planning or technical reasoning?

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