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Neural correlates of object and action naming: Complementary evidence from Primary Progressive Aphasia and acute stroke

Bonnie L. Breining1*, Yuan Ye Beh1, 2, Amy Wright1, Sadhvi Saxena1, Donna C. Tippett1, Rajani Sebastian1, Andreia V. Faria1 and Argye Hillis1
  • 1 Johns Hopkins University, United States
  • 2 University of Aberdeen, School of Medicine, United Kingdom

Problem Neurological damage can result in selective deficits of naming for both objects and actions (e.g. Hillis & Caramazza, 1995; Hillis et al., 2006; Thompson et al, 2012; Tranel et al., 2001; Zingeser & Berndt, 1990). However, assessment of individuals with aphasia often focuses on object naming, making it insensitive for detecting certain language deficits and providing an incomplete view of the neural regions involved in naming. Furthermore, although dissociations have been observed both following stroke and as a result of neurodegenerative conditions such as primary progressive aphasia (PPA), results from the different etiologies are seldom compared directly. Here, we compared the neural substrates of object and action naming in PPA and acute stroke. Method Individuals with PPA (N=137) and acute left hemisphere ischemic stroke (N=37) were given the Boston Naming Test to evaluate object naming and the Hopkins Action Naming Assessment to evaluate action naming. These evaluations are matched on frequency and length. Behavioral performance on object and action naming was compared using Fisher’s Exact tests. Anatomical MRIs were collected on a subset of participants with PPA (N=31) and acute stroke (N=37). Atlas-based analysis was used to segment each brain into regions of interest using the MRI Cloud platform (www.mricloud.org). The relationship between performance on each naming task and percent of intracerebral volume in ROI (for PPA) or percent of ROI lesioned (for acute stroke) was evaluated using lasso regression. Results Double dissociations in performance on object and action naming were observed in both etiologies: some participants performed significantly (p<.05) better on objects than actions (11 PPA, 1 acute stroke) while others performed better on actions than objects (2 PPA, 1 acute stroke). In PPA, the right superior and inferior temporal gyri and left middle temporal pole were associated with both object and action naming, while brain size was only associated with object naming and the pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus was only associated with action naming. In stroke, the left angular gyrus was associated with both object and action naming, while the left middle temporal gyrus was only associated with object naming and the left fusiform gyrus and total lesion volume were only associated with action naming. Conclusions Comparing the patterns of impairment and the association between naming performance and damage to neural regions of interest in both PPA and stroke provides a more comprehensive picture of the brain-behavior relationships critical for naming. Double dissociations between object and action naming performance were observed in both populations. Although shared neural substrates were identified for object and action naming within each etiology, differences between the word classes were also observed. Our results demonstrate that complementary information can be obtained by comparing different etiologies: different regions were identified in the analyses of PPA and acute stroke, likely because different regions tend to be damaged in these populations, showing that information would be missed if only one etiology were investigated.

References

Hillis, A. E., & Caramazza, A. (1995). Representation of grammatical knowledge in the brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 396–407. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.1995.7.3.396

Hillis, A. E., Heidler‐Gary, J., Newhart, M., Chang, S., Ken, L., & Bak, T. H. (2006). Naming and comprehension in primary progressive aphasia: The influence of grammatical word class. Aphasiology, 20, 246–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687030500473262

Thompson, C. K., Lukic, S., King, M. C., Mesulam, M.-M., & Weintraub, S. (2012). Verb and noun deficits in stroke- induced and primary progressive aphasia : The Northwestern Naming Battery. Aphasiology, 26, 632–655. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2012.676852

Tranel, D., Adolphs, R., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. R. (2001). A Neural Basis for the Retrieval of Words for Actions. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 18(7), 655–674. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643290143000015

Zingeser, L. B., & Berndt, R. S. (1990). Retrieval of nouns and verbs in agrammatism and anomia. Brain and Language, 39(1), 14–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/0093-934X(90)90002-X

Keywords: acute stroke, primary progressive aphasia, Naming deficits, action naming, object naming

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017.

Presentation Type: poster presentation

Topic: Aphasia

Citation: Breining BL, Beh Y, Wright A, Saxena S, Tippett DC, Sebastian R, Faria AV and Hillis A (2019). Neural correlates of object and action naming: Complementary evidence from Primary Progressive Aphasia and acute stroke. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00099

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Received: 18 Apr 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Bonnie L Breining, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States, breining@jhu.edu