title: An area essential for linking word meanings to word forms: evidence from primary progressive aphasia.
abstract: We investigated the relationship between deficits in naming and areas of focal atrophy in primary progressive aphasia (a neurodegenerative disease that specifically affects language processing). We tested patients, across multiple input modalities, on traditional naming tasks (picture naming) and more complex tasks (sentence completion with a name, naming in response to a question) and obtained high resolution MRI. Across most tasks, error rates were correlated with atrophy in the left middle and posterior inferior temporal gyrus. Overall, this result converges with prior literature suggesting that this region plays a major role in modality independent lexical processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Race
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsapkini
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Crinion
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Newhart
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Hillis
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Faria
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D018888:Aphasia, Primary Progressive / Q000473:pathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male
keywords: Inferior temporal cortex; Lexical access; MRI; Naming; Neurodegeneration; Primary progressive aphasia