Deficit of verb generation in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease.
Clinical and neuroimaging studies have shown that verb processing suggests a preferential participation of a prefrontal network, which is dysfunctional in Parkinson's disease (PD). To assess a verb processing deficit in PD, we compared noun- and verb-generation tasks for 34 nondemented PD patients (according to the Dementia Rating Scale) with 34 matched normal subjects, using two intracategory tasks (noun/noun and verb/verb generation) and two intercategory tasks (noun/verb and verb/noun generation). PD patients were significantly impaired in the two tasks involving verb production, i.e., verb/verb and noun/verb generation, whereas their performance was similar to those of controls in the two tasks requiring noun production. For the two impaired tasks, we assessed 1) the influence of lexical competition that corresponds to the presence of several candidate words for a given stimulus; 2) the influence of slight cognitive dysfunction; and 3) the influence of motor deficit. Significant correlations were found between DRS scores and performance on the noun/verb task, and no significant correlations were found between lexical competition or motor deficit and performance. The specific deficit for verb production in PD patients is discussed in relation to deficits affecting either action or grammatical representations.
Péran
Patrice
P
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U 455, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Purpan, Toulouse, France.
Rascol
Olivier
O
Démonet
Jean-François
JF
Celsis
Pierre
P
Nespoulous
Jean-Luc
JL
Dubois
Bruno
B
Cardebat
Dominique
D
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014825:Vocabulary
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents