title: Syntactic processing as a marker for cognitive impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
abstract: Despite recent interest in cognitive changes in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), investigations of language function looking at the level of word, sentence and discourse processing are relatively scarce. Data were obtained from 26 patients with sporadic ALS and 26 healthy controls matched for age, education, gender, anxiety, depression and executive function performance. Standardized language tasks included confrontation naming, semantic access, and syntactic comprehension. Quantitative production analysis (QPA) was used to analyse connected speech samples of the Cookie Theft picture description task. Results showed that the ALS patients were impaired on standardized measures of grammatical comprehension and action/verb semantics. At the level of discourse, ALS patients were impaired on measures of syntactic complexity and fluency; however, the latter could be better explained by disease related factors. Discriminant analysis revealed that syntactic measures differentiated ALS patients from controls. In conclusion, patients with ALS exhibit deficits in receptive and expressive language on tasks of comprehension and connected speech production, respectively. Our findings suggest that syntactic processing deficits seem to be the predominant feature of language impairment in ALS and that these deficits can be detected by relatively simple language tests.
authors: a Faculty of Education and Health, Department of Psychology , Social Work and Counselling, University of Greenwich , London , UK.
authors: Stella
authors: S
authors: Tsermentseli
authors: b Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Trafford Centre for Biomedical Research, University of Sussex , Falmer , UK.
authors: P Nigel
authors: PN
authors: Leigh
authors: c The Michael Rutter Centre, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust , London , UK.
authors: Lorna J
authors: LJ
authors: Taylor
authors: d Barts Health Motor Neurone Disease Centre, Barts Health NHS Trust , London , UK.
authors: Aleksandar
authors: A
authors: Radunovic
authors: e King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Natbrainlab, Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences , London , UK.
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Catani
authors: f King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Psychology , London , UK.
authors: Laura H
authors: LH
authors: Goldstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015415:Biomarkers; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012660:Semantics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013068:Speech Production Measurement / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Cognition; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; language; speech