title: Lexical access changes in patients with multiple sclerosis: a two-year follow-up study.
abstract: The aim of the study was to analyze lexical access strategies in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their changes over time. We studied lexical access strategies during semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tests and also confrontation naming in a 2-year prospective cohort of 45 MS patients and 20 healthy controls. At baseline, switching lexical access strategy (both in semantic and in phonemic verbal fluency tests) and confrontation naming were significantly impaired in MS patients compared with controls. After 2 years follow-up, switching score decreased, and cluster size increased over time in semantic verbal fluency tasks, suggesting a failure in the retrieval of lexical information rather than an impairment of the lexical pool. In conclusion, these findings underline the significant presence of lexical access problems in patients with MS and could point out their key role in the alterations of high-level communications abilities in MS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, CIMA University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sepulcre
authors.forename: Herminia
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Peraita
authors.forename: Joaquin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goni
authors.forename: Gonzalo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arrondo
authors.forename: Inigo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Martincorena
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Duque
authors.forename: Nieves
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Velez de Mendizabal
authors.forename: Joseph C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Masdeu
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Villoslada
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D018450:Disease Progression; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*