title: Action (verb) generation in HIV-1 infection.
abstract: It has been proposed that verb generation is primarily associated with left fronto-basal ganglia circuits, whereas the generation of nouns is principally mediated by dominant left temporo-parietal networks. Consistent with this premise, action (verb) fluency - a verbal fluency task requiring the spontaneous generation of verbs - has shown greater sensitivity to frontal-basal ganglia pathophysiology (e.g., dementia in Parkinson's disease (PDD)) than noun fluency. The present study examined action and noun fluency in persons with HIV-1 infection-a disease known to be associated with a frontal-basal ganglia circuit neuropathogenesis. Action and noun ("animals") verbal fluency protocols were administered to 97 persons with HIV-1 infection and 20 demographically comparable healthy comparison (HC) subjects. A significant interaction emerged between verbal fluency task and HIV-1 serostatus such that the HIV+ group generated significantly fewer actions (verbs) relative to the HC sample. Findings indicate that persons infected with HIV-1 experience difficulty rapidly generating verbs, but not nouns from semantic memory. Considering the prominent frontal-basal ganglia circuit neuropathophysiology of HIV-1 infection, these data are consistent with the hypothesized dissociation between noun and verb generation as pertains to generative fluency.
authors.affiliation: HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92103, USA. spwoods@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Steven Paul
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: Catherine L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: Alexander I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Tröster
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Grant
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011578:Psycholinguistics / Q000379:methods; D012016:Reference Values; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*