More than a piece of cake: Noun classifier processing in primary progressive aphasia

Tee, Boon Lead; Li‐Ying, Lorinda Kwan‐Chen; Chen, Ta‐Fu; Yan, Connie TY; Tsoh, Joshua; Chan, Andrew Lung‐Tat; Wong, Adrian; Lo, Raymond Y.; Lu, Chien Jung; Sun, Yu; Wang, Pei‐Ning; Lee, YiChen; Chiu, Ming‐Jang; Allen, Isabel Elaine; Battistella, Giovanni; Bak, Thomas H.; Chuang, Yu‐Chen; García, Adolfo M.; Gorno‐Tempini, Maria Luisa

doi:10.1002/alz.13701

Cited by 3 publications

References 36 publications

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Primary progressive aphasia in Italian and English: a cross-linguistic cohort study

Mazzeo,

Hardy,

Jiang

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Background and objectives: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) signifies a diverse group of neurodegenerative disorders principally affecting language functions. The major syndromic variants of PPA present with distinct profiles of linguistic deficits. However, current concepts and diagnosis of PPA are largely based on English-speaking patients, while few studies have explored how PPA syndromes might vary between languages. Here we undertook a comprehensive neuropsychological comparison of all major PPA syndromes in two languages with contrasting characteristics: Italian and English. Methods: We retrospectively compared the PPA cohorts attending our specialist referral centres on neuropsychological tests sampling a range of linguistic and general cognitive domains. The cohorts comprised 106 native Italian-speakers with PPA (14 nonfluent/agrammatic variant [nfvPPA], 20 semantic variant [svPPA], 41 logopenic variant [lvPPA], 31 mixed PPA [mPPA]) and 166 native English-speakers with PPA (70 nfvPPA, 45 svPPA, 42 lvPPA, 9 mPPA). Neuropsychological scores were normalised to healthy older native speakers (adjusted for age and years of education) and dichotomised (impaired/unimpaired) to identify the proportion of each cohort showing impairment on each test. Cohorts were compared in logistic regression models, covarying for symptom duration and overall cognitive severity. Results: The English PPA cohort was significantly younger (mean 62.7 years) than the Italian cohort (mean 65.9 years; p=0.003), with longer symptom duration (mean 4.6 vs 3.1 years; p=0.048), a higher proportion of nfvPPA cases (42% vs. 13%, p<0.001) and lower proportions of lvPPA (25% vs. 38%, p=0.019) and mPPA (5% vs. 29%, p<0.001). Compared with Italian-speaking patients, English-speaking nfvPPA patients had less frequent expressive agrammatism (p=0.015) and more frequently impaired single-word comprehension (p=0.013) and nonverbal working memory (p=0.041). English svPPA patients had more frequent surface dyslexia (p=0.046) and dysgraphia (p=0.021), while English lvPPA patients had more frequently impaired single-word comprehension (p<0.001), word repetition (p=0.02), nonverbal working memory (p=0.005) and visuospatial perception (p<0.001). Discussion: Language-specific characteristics importantly influence PPA phenotypes: degeneration of language networks may predispose to expressive agrammatism in Italian (reflecting its morphological complexity) and to impaired spoken word processing and regularisation errors in English (reflecting its articulatory, acoustic and orthographic complexity). These findings have implications for diagnosis, management and cross-linguistic collaborative initiatives in PPA.

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Primary progressive aphasia in Italian and English: a cross-linguistic cohort study

Mazzeo,

Hardy,

Jiang

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Speech Markers: Insights from English, Chinese, and Italian Speakers

Santi,

Catricalà,

Kwan

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Cross-linguistic studies with healthy individuals are vital, as they can reveal typologically common and different patterns while providing tailored benchmarks for patient studies. Nevertheless, cross-linguistic differences in narrative speech production, particularly among speakers of languages belonging to distinct language families, have been inadequately investigated. Using a picture description task, we analyze cross-linguistic variations in connected speech production across three linguistically diverse groups of cognitively normal participants - English, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Italian speakers. We extracted 28 linguistic features, encompassing phonological, lexico-semantic, morpho-syntactic, and discourse/pragmatic domains. We utilized a semi-automated approach with Computerized Language ANalysis (CLAN) to compare the frequency of production of various linguistic features across the three language groups. Our findings revealed distinct proportional differences in linguistic feature usage among English, Chinese, and Italian speakers. Specifically, we found a reduced production of prepositions, conjunctions, and pronouns, and increased adverb use in the Chinese-speakers compared to the other two languages. Furthermore, English participants produced a higher proportion of prepositions, while Italian speakers produced significantly more conjunctions and empty pauses than the other groups. These findings demonstrate that the frequency of specific linguistic phenomena varies across languages, even when using the same harmonized task. This underscores the critical need to develop linguistically tailored language assessment tools and to identify speech markers that are appropriate for aphasia patients across different languages.

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Primary Progressive Aphasia in Italian and English

Mazzeo,

Hardy,

Jiang

et al. 2024

Neurology

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Background and ObjectivesCurrent formulations of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) derive largely from Englishspeaking patients. We hypothesized that language-specific characteristics influence PPA phenotypes in 2 contrasting languages: Italian and English. MethodsWe undertook a retrospective, cross-sectional, observational comparison of 2 patient cohorts representing all major PPA syndromes, in London and Florence. Neuropsychological scores in a range of linguistic and general cognitive domains were normalized to native speaker controls and dichotomized as impaired/unimpaired. Proportions were compared using χ 2 tests and adjusted for symptom duration and severity of cognitive impairment using logistic regression. ResultsThe cohorts comprised 106 (48.1% female) Italian speakers (14 nonfluent/agrammatic [nfvPPA], 20 semantic [svPPA], 41 logopenic variant [lvPPA], 31 mixed PPA [mPPA]) and 166 (45.2% female) English speakers (70 nfvPPA, 45 svPPA, 42 lvPPA, 9 mPPA). Comparing cohorts, the English cohort was younger (mean 62.7 [SD = 8.4] vs 65.9 [7.8] years; p = 0.003, Cohen d = 0.39), with longer symptom duration (4.6 [4.3] vs 3.1 [2.5] years; p = 0.048, d = 1.08), a higher proportion of nfvPPA cases (42% vs 13%, χ 2 = 25.4, p < 0.001), and lower proportions of lvPPA (25% vs 38%, χ 2 = 5.46, p = 0.019) and mPPA (5% vs 29%, χ 2 = 29.3, p < 0.001). English-speaking nfvPPA patients had less frequent expressive agrammatism (46% vs 93%, p = 0.015, odds ratio [OR] 16.05, 95% CI 1.70-151.13) but more frequently impaired single-word comprehension (60% vs 8%, p = 0.013, OR 0.06, 95% CI 0.00-0.56). English svPPA patients had more frequent surface dyslexia (68% vs 30%, p = 0.046, OR 0.24, 95% CI 0.06-0.97) and dysgraphia (38% vs 10%, p = 0.021, OR 0.09, 95% CI 0.01-0.70) while English lvPPA patients had more frequently impaired single-word comprehension (89% vs 29%, p < 0.

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More than a piece of cake: Noun classifier processing in primary progressive aphasia

Cited by 3 publications

References 36 publications

Primary progressive aphasia in Italian and English: a cross-linguistic cohort study

Primary progressive aphasia in Italian and English: a cross-linguistic cohort study

Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Speech Markers: Insights from English, Chinese, and Italian Speakers

Primary Progressive Aphasia in Italian and English

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