Lecture 13: Neuropsychology of Language Flashcards

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1
Q

Agraphia

A

decline in or loss of the ability to write

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2
Q

Alexia

A

inability to read

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3
Q

Anarthria

A

paralysis or incoordination of musculature of the mouth

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4
Q

Paraphasia

A

the production of unintended syllables, words, or phrases during speech

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5
Q

Wernicke Aphasia

A

an inability to comprehend or to produce meaningful speech even though the production of words remain intact

also called sensory aphasia

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6
Q

Word Salad

A

fluent aphasia in which a person produces intelligible words that appear to be strong together randomly

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7
Q

Transcortical Aphasia

A

disorder in which an affected person can repeat and understand words and name objects but cannot speak spontaneously or can repeat words but cannot comprehend them

also called isolation syndrome

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8
Q

Conduction Aphasia

A

a type of fluent aphasia resulting from severing fiber connections between anterior and posterior speech zones

speech sounds and movements are retained, but speech is impaired because it cannot be conducted from one region to the other

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9
Q

Amnesic Aphasia

A

an aphasic syndrome characterized by the inability to name objects and by the production of unintended syllables, words, or phrases while speaking

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10
Q

Expressive Aphasia

A

non-fluent aphasia involving a severe deficit in producing language

also called Broca’s aphasia

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11
Q

What are phonemes?

A

fundamental language sounds (“p; b; sh”)

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12
Q

What are morphemes?

A

smallest meaningful units of words (“dog”, “unbreakable”)

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13
Q

What is a lexicon?

A

collection of all the words in a language (vocabulary)

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14
Q

What is syntax?

A

meaning of words and sentences

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15
Q

What is prosody?

A

vocal intentions

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16
Q

What is discourse?

A

stringing sentences together to form a meaningful narrative

17
Q

What is the Wernicke-Geshwind Model?

A

words read go to the occipital lobe; occipital lobe sends info to Wernicke’s; Wernicke’s will then give carbon copy of info to Broca’s so it can work on a response

question heard goes to temporal; loops into Wernicke’s; carbon copy gets sent to Broca’s

even if M1 is intact, if Broca’s is damaged, words will not be produced

damage anywhere in the model produces different effects in male and female brains

18
Q

What is aphasia?

A

complete loss of language

dysphasia?

85% result from cerebrovascular strokes

absence of sensory impairments
perceptual: agnosia
motor: apraxia
thought: autism, dementia, etc.

breakdown between thought and language

19
Q

What are the problems of classification of aphasia?

A

few patients

lesion variability: rarely identical or discrete, left hemisphere, perisylvian

production and comprehension depends on many things:
large portions of cortex
complex, dynamic interactions
locating damage which disrupts speech and locating speech are two different things

damage can block connection between Broca’s and Wernicke’s and not the structures themselves

20
Q

What are the different types of aphasia?

A

sensory: posterior perisylvian

production: inferior frontal, precentral

conduction: arcuate fasciculus

transcortical sensory: tempoparietaloccipital

transcortical motor: medial frontal

mixed transcortical: frontal and parietal

21
Q

What is sensory (fluent) aphasia?

A

also called Wernicke’s or receptive aphasia

prominent deficits in language comprehension

speech production in language comprehension

speech production is normal: normal rate, prosody, rhythm

production errors: especially phoneme & syllabic repetition errors & neologisms (made up words), described as word salad

production sometimes becomes excessive: “press of speech” or “logorrhea”

speech can be semantically empty: e.g., when asked where he lived “I came there before here and returned there”, but makes perfect sense to the patient

22
Q

What is the area of damage in sensory (fluent) aphasia?

A

auditory areas of the brain

sensory association areas

23
Q

What is production (motor) aphasia?

A

also called Broca’s, expressive, or non-fluent aphasia

main symptom: prominent deficit in production

symptoms range from inability to speak to laborious speech

morphology and syntax often also disrupted, with patients frequently using unaffixed word forms

as well as eliminating adjectives, articles, and adverbs; described as “telegraphic speech”

rely on content words (nouns and verbs)

24
Q

What are the areas of damage in production (motor) aphasia?

A

motor areas of the brain

frontal lobes

25
Q

What is the functional organization of bilingualism?

A

Kim et al. (1997): distinct cortical areas associated with native and second languages

studied bilingual participants who had acquired second language late in life

used fMRI to “image” working brain while performing tasks in both languages (English and French)

carry out language tasks in the fMRI, should have activation on both sides

only one focus in posterior brain (Wernicke’s area)

more common areas of activation for English and French in later learners

two separate “foci” in the frontal regions of the brain (Broca’s area)

26
Q

What were the results of the study on the functional organization of bilingualism?

A

separation of area of activation in Broca’s (production)

more overlap of area of activation in Wernicke’s (comprehension)

demonstrates plasticity

bilinguals who acquired 2 languages in childhood did not have separation in Broca’s area

27
Q

What is the model for how language breaks down?

A
  1. language input
  2. Wernicke’s (comprehension)
  3. branches to higher order processing then to Broca’s
  4. Wernicke’s also sends signals direct to Broca’s (production)
  5. output of language
28
Q

What is conduction aphasia?

A

impaired repetition abilities and severe disruption in repetition of non-meaningful words or sequences

have comprehension and spontaneous speech, but can’t repeat word for word repeats

attempt to correct

aware of disorder

like Broca’s

harder for non-concrete words (proud)

association fiber damage (disconnection syndrome)

hear, “bicycle” - access visual imagery system
hear, “blaynge” - no idea

29
Q

What are the areas of damage in conduction aphasia?

A

perceptual word image (Wernicke’s) is cut off from motor image (Broca’s)

cannot repeat nonsense words, can go through other pathways of given a concrete word

damage to pathway connecting Broca’s and Wernicke’s

pathway is not responsible for language, but damage results in language deficits