Is there less micrographia in foreign language in Parkinson’s disease?

Abstract

Cerebral processing for native and foreign languages differs.1 A 71-year-old, right-handed Japanese man with a 5-year history of Parkinson disease (PD) noticed that micrographia was more severe in his written Japanese than his written English. The severity of PD was Hoehn & Yahr III, and Menesit 300 mg and Domin 0.8 mg were given daily. The patient was a retired priest who had been a high school English teacher until age 65. He had never lived in an English-speaking country and was not bilingual. He educated himself by writing English every morning. Before drug therapy was initiated in the early morning, micrographia predominantly occurred in his written Japanese but less in his written English ( figure, A). After beginning drug therapy, micrographia improved in both languages ( figure, B).Micrographia is a common and well-known symptom of PD. However, to our knowledge, this discrepancy between native and foreign languages has not previously been described. These findings may reflect a type of paradoxical movement, a well-known symptom of PD.

Micrographia and related deficits in Parkinson's disease: a cross-sectional study

“…In literature, micrographia has been reported to be more frequent in native than secondary languages, owing to impaired execution of more utilized tasks 20. In our population, most subjects spoke only one language (English).…”

Clinical Neurolinguistics of Bilingualism

“…In line with the declarative/procedural model (Paradis, 1994(Paradis, , 2004Ullman, 2001Ullman, , 2004, the study showed that patients with PD are especially impaired in accessing implicit, procedural grammatical knowledge of L1. In a similar vein, a single case study (Yazawa, Kawasaki, & Ohi, 2003 ) reported a bilingual Japanese -English PD patient presenting a more severe micrographia in writing in his native language, which was likely more automatic, than in English writing. This evidence in PD suggest a greater involvement of the basal ganglia in the acquisition and further processing of L1, and in particular of L1 grammatical knowledge, thus further corroborating the view of a major involvement of procedural memory in representing L1 grammar (Paradis, 2004 ).…”

Bilingualism and neuropsychiatric disorders

“…Also, Yazawa, Kawasaki, and Ohi (2003) describe a bilingual Japanese-English patient whose micrographia (a common and well-known symptom of Parkinson's disease) was more severe in his written Japanese (his native language) than his written English (his second language). The patient had never lived in an English-speaking country and was not considered bilingual.…”