title: Unspeakable motion: Selective action-verb impairments in Parkinson's disease patients without mild cognitive impairment.
abstract: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients show marked impairments in processing action verbs, and to a lesser extent, concrete (specially, manipulable) nouns. However, it is still unclear to what extent deficits in each of these categories are influenced by more general cognitive dysfunctions, and whether they are modulated by the words' implied motility. To examine these issues, we evaluated 49 non-demented PD patients and 49 healthy volunteers in an oral production task. The patients were divided into two groups depending on the presence or absence of mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI and PD-nMCI, respectively). Participants named pictures of actions varying in motion content (low and high) and of objects varying in manipulability (low and high). The PD-MCI group showed deficits across all four categories. However, PD-nMCI patients exhibited a selective difficulty for high-motion action verbs. This finding corroborates and refines previous results suggesting that disturbances of action-related lexico-semantic information in PD constitute a sui generis alteration manifested early in the course of the disease's physiopathology. Moreover, it suggests that the grounding of action verbs on motor circuits could depend on fine-grained intracategorical semantic distinctions.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia; Group of Neuropsychology and Conduct (GRUNECO), Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia. Electronic address: yamilebocanegra@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yamile
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bocanegra
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCyT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Pacheco de Melo 1860, C1126AAB Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina; Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Sobremonte 74, C5500 Mendoza, Argentina.
authors.forename: Adolfo M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: García
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lopera
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia; Group of Neuropsychology and Conduct (GRUNECO), Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pineda
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baena
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ospina
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Alzate
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia; Neurology Unit, Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital, Calle 78B No. 69-240, 050034 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Buriticá
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Group, Faculty of Medicine, University of Antioquia (UDEA), SIU, Calle 62 No. 52-59, 050010 Medellín, Colombia; Neurology Unit, Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital, Calle 78B No. 69-240, 050034 Medellín, Colombia.
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moreno
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCyT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Pacheco de Melo 1860, C1126AAB Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina; Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Calle 90, No. 46-112, C2754 Barranquilla, Colombia; Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Diagonal Las Torres 2640, Santiago, Chile; Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Research Council (ACR), Sydney, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Agustín
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ibáñez
authors.affiliation: University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain. Electronic address: fcuetos@uniovi.es.
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cuetos
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009038:Motion; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D012660:Semantics
keywords: Action verbs; Manipulable nouns; Mild cognitive impairment; Motor semantics; Parkinson’s disease; Picture naming