title: Action verb comprehension in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.
abstract: Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have a motor disorder and cognitive difficulties, including difficulty with action verbs. However, the basis for the action verb impairment is unknown. Thirty-six participants with ALS and 22 with Parkinson's disease (PD) were assessed on a simple, two-alternative forced-choice associativity judgment task, where performance was untimed and did not depend on motor functioning. We probed 120 frequency-matched action verbs, cognition verbs, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. Performance was related to T1 MRI imaging of gray matter atrophy. Patients with ALS were significantly impaired relative to healthy senior control participants only for action verbs. Patients with PD did not differ from controls for all word categories. Regression analyses related action verb performance in ALS to motor-associated cortices, but action verb judgments in PD were not related to cortical atrophy. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that action verb difficulty in ALS is related in part to the degradation of action-related conceptual knowledge represented in motor-associated cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Collin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: York
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Olm
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boller
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McCluskey
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Elman
authors.forename: Jenna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haley
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Seltzer
authors.forename: Lama
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chahine
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: Katya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rascovsky
authors.forename: Corey
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McMillan
authors.forename: Murray
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grossman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*