Processing of Pitch, Rhythm and Timbre in Primary Progressive Aphasia
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1
KU Leuven, Belgium
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2
University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
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3
Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Background: The study of domains of nonverbal processing in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) may enhance our insight into the mechanisms underlying the aphasia as well as reveal the biological relationship between these nonverbal domains and language in the human brain.
Aim: Is primary progressive aphasia associated with deficits in basic nonverbal sound processing?
Methods: A consecutive series of 10 cases of PPA were recruited via the memory clinic of the University Hospitals Leuven and compared to 24 community-recruited elderly controls. One of the inclusion criteria was a pure-tone audiogram within the normal range. Subjects underwent a battery of 12 psychoacoustic, purely perceptual tests of pitch, rhythm and timbre, assessing single-sound and sound-sequence processing. Ten tasks were based on an adaptive staircase procedure to reliably determine thresholds for just noticeable differences, the other 2 were based on a same-different paradigm measuring accuracy for a given difficulty level. Subjects also received a neurolinguistic assessment and volumetric MRI as well as 11C-PIB amyloid PET in 6 cases.
Results: In 8 of the PPA subjects (4 semantic variant (SV); 2 nonfluent variant (NFV); 2 logopenic variant (LV)) reliable thresholds and accuracy measures could be obtained. In 5 of these cases (3 SV, 2 LV) perceptual thresholds and accuracies were within the normal range entirely. The two NFV cases showed striking abnormalities in rhythm perception with relatively preserved perception of pitch, and minor deficits in timbre perception. The remaining SV case showed abnormalities in tests of pitch, rhythm as well as timbre perception.
Conclusion: In the nonfluent variant of PPA, subclinical auditory deficits, in particular in rhythm perception, exist and may contribute to the motor speech deficit.
Keywords:
primary progressive aphasia,
Auditory Perception,
Language,
Dementia,
Neuropsychology
Conference:
Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory
Citation:
Bruffaerts
R,
De Weer
A,
Grube
M,
Griffiths
T and
Vandenberghe
R
(2012). Processing of Pitch, Rhythm and Timbre in Primary Progressive Aphasia.
Conference Abstract:
Belgian Brain Council.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00002
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Received:
10 Sep 2012;
Published Online:
12 Sep 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Rik Vandenberghe, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, rik.vandenberghe@uzleuven.be