Effects of thalamic deep brain stimulation on spontaneous language production.
The thalamus is thought to contribute to language-related processing, but specifications of this notion remain vague. An assessment of potential effects of thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) on spontaneous language may help to delineate respective functions. For this purpose, we analyzed spontaneous language samples from thirteen (six female / seven male) patients with essential tremor treated with DBS of the thalamic ventral intermediate nucleus (VIM) in their respective ON vs. OFF conditions. Samples were obtained from semi-structured interviews and examined on multidimensional linguistic levels. In the VIM-DBS ON condition, participants used a significantly higher proportion of paratactic as opposed to hypotactic sentence structures. This increase correlated negatively with the change in the more global cognitive score, which in itself did not change significantly. In conclusion, VIM-DBS appears to induce the use of a simplified syntactic structure. The findings are discussed in relation to concepts of thalamic roles in language-related cognitive behavior.
Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany.
Felicitas
F
Ehlen
Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany.
Isabelle
I
Vonberg
Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Campus Virchow Klinikum, Department of Neurology, Motor Neuroscience Group, Augustenburger Platz 1, 13353 Berlin, Germany.
Andrea A
AA
Kühn
Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: fabian.klostermann@charite.de.
Fabian
F
Klostermann
D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D046690:Deep Brain Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D020329:Essential Tremor / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D020651:Ventral Thalamic Nuclei / Q000502:physiology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary
Spontaneous language; Syntax; Thalamus; VIM-DBS