Introduction to Neurolinguistics and Aphasias Flashcards
Information about neuroanatomy is limited because we already covered it in neuroscience
The neuron has three primary functions - which three?
The function of a neuron is:
take in information
Make ‘’decisions’’ about the info received
Transmit this info to other neurons by changes in their activity levels
What is cerebral dominance?
Although the two hemispheres work together, are connected and share information (through commissures), each hemisphere appears to be specialized for specific functions.
Left hemisphere:
Language, math, logic
Right hemisphere:
Spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery, music
Which two views of brain organisation are there?
The holistic approach and the localisationist approach. Localisaitonists, like Broca and Wernicke, claimed that different locations of the brain are specialised for a specific function (like, speech production). Holists believe that localizationalists falsely compartmentalize language abilities and postulate that language is supported by larger areas of the brain.
What does Hughlings Jackson say about the organisation of the brain? That behaviours (such as language) are…..
He also introduced the idea that behaviors (such as language) are constellations of activities each of which can depend on distinct neural activities. Today, we believe the brain is composed of networks which do have specialisation but they are dispersed around the brain. While a brain lesion may produce a bizarre symptom it does not mean that the impaired area is only specialized for this function.
Compare the globalist and localizationist view of brain organisation
Neither were completely right. A complex ability is not accomplished by a single part of the brain = globalists are right! However, simple processes that are recruited to exercise abilities such as those described by phrenologists are localized = localizationists are right! The wrong thing to ask is ‘’where’’ in the brain something is located; it is more correct to ask rather what kind of computations in the brain form the basis of processing linguistic representations.
Pick the three correct anwers.
There are three possible neurobiological mechanisms for linguistic computation:
A) Concatenation
B) Recursion
C) Regression
D) Constituency
There are three possible neurobiological mechanisms for linguistic computation:
A) Concatenation
B) Recursion
C) Regression
D) Constituency
————- is a general term for an acquired language-related impairment
Aphasia is a general term for an acquired language-related impairment
A couple comes to you (you’re a doctor btw, let’s say neurologist) and the man says his wife has a strange way of speaking. What kind of tests would you conduct to determine if his wife has an aphasia?
(Probably not important to know)
Aphasia batteries:
Boston diagnostic aphasia exam (BDAE);
Western aphasia battery (WAB);
Porch index of communicative ability (PICA)
A patient comes to you and performs the cookie theft task. Their description is as follows:
Woman…take table…a woman-no! Son..um..cookies..uh…girl…cookies..um…oh, mmm um…yeah….oh…oh…br…m…water…water!…OK…
Which symptoms can you see (give examples)? What kind of aphasia is this? What are common characteristics of this aphasia?
→ it’s agrammatical: verbs need company, they need to agree (tense, person, ‘woman take table’)
→ disfluencies; ‘’um’’ ‘’mmmmm’’ ‘hm’ → the person is really struggling
→ semantic paraphasia: instead of saying apple you say pear (you say something related to the thing you are actually saying; table instead of counter maybe)
Broca’s aphasia,
Main symptoms:
agrammatism ‘lack of grammar’
non-fluent; omission of grammatical markers
open/closed class distinction
spared comprehension
poor repetition
poor naming (anomia; cannot retrieve word from mental lexicon); cricumlocutions (they say things around: ‘’that thing that opens doors)
writing is affected (adjacent regions get affected; Broca’s legion is on the left hemisphere so the right side of the body is affected)
patients with the smallest lesions are the most depressed as they are aware of their problem and often depressed
You read the description of the cookie theft by a patient:
“OK there the dishes\…the the the water is overflowing, I’m sorry, it’s on the floor, she is um, she’s not, she’s washing and drying the dishes. There’s somebodythere’s a little child coo-cookie.”
This patients has:
A) Wernicke’s aphasia
B) Transconductive aphasia
C) Conduction aphasia
D) Broca’s aphasia
You read the description of the cookie theft by a patient:
“OK there the dishes\…the the the water is overflowing, I’m sorry, it’s on the floor, she is um, she’s not, she’s washing and drying the dishes. There’s somebodythere’s a little child coo-cookie.”
This patients has:
A) Wernicke’s aphasia
B) Transconductive aphasia
C) Conduction aphasia
D) Broca’s aphasia
One or more possible answers.
A patient described the cookie theft picture. Their description:
The girl and the boy want the /pitcher/and girl wipe the…can’t say it..I can’t say it…Girl and boy watch the cookie /shar/ and …girl paint the…
Their description has the following symptoms:
A) Neologisms
B) Disfluencies
C) Semantic paraphasia
D) Problems with lexical retreival
A patient described the cookie theft picture. Their description:
The girl and the boy want the /pitcher/and girl wipe the…can’t say it..I can’t say it…Girl and boy watch the cookie /shar/ and …girl paint the…
Their description has the following symptoms:
A) Neologisms
B) Disfluencies
C) Semantic paraphasia
D) Problems with lexical retreival
A patient was asked to name the object in front of them ( a clock). Their syntax and comprehension is otherwise okay. Their answer was as follows:
‘’Of course, I know that. It’s the thing you use for counting, for telling the time, you know, one of those, it’s a …[examiner: but doesn’t it have a name?]. Why of course it does. I just can’t think of it. Let me look at my notebook.”
This patient has —————.
anomic aphasia
A patient comes to the hospital and is asked if they know why they are here. They have no difficulty reading and relatively okay writing. They patient does not seem to be aware of their deficit. When asked the question, their answer was:
“Is this some of the work that we work as we did before? … All right … From when wine I’m here. What’s wrond with me because I … was myself until the taenz took something about the time between me and my regular time in that time and they took the time in that time here and that’s when the time took around here and saw me arund in it it’s started with me no time and then I bekan work of nothing else that’s the way the doctor find me that way…”
What type of aphasia do you think they have? What symptoms do you see in their response? How would you know they aren’t someone suffering a psychotic break or formal thought disorder (like shizophrenia)?
This is Wernicke’s aphasia, in which speech is fluent but their comprehension is mostly impaired. In their answer, there is no content, there is some perseveration (repetition), neologism (from when wine i’m here). We could test them for lesions with an MRI machine.
A patient comes in and presents with the following language-related symptoms:
* Fluent, effortless but incomprehensible speech
* Intact syntax
* Problem with the selection of nouns
* Many neologisms (you hear them say they were lane for a meeting)
What form of aphasia are they likely to have?
Jargonophasia
————— aphasia is caused by a disruption in the fiber pathways connecting Wernicke and Broca’s area.
Conduction aphasia
The main symptoms of conduction aphasia include…
Symptoms:
Major problems with repetition (you hear and understand, but cannot travel to the production area)
Patient produce phonemic paraphasias : ‘’television’’ → ‘’veletision’’
They generate successive approximations to words
Sentences are usually short and often unrelated
They often perform overwriting (no spaces between words)
It shows why production and comprehension should communicate with each other
The patient knows what s/he wants to say but cannot say it. Patients are aware and frustrated
A patient came in. They recently suffered from a massive left hemisphere stroke and are experiencing right-side paralysis and severe impariments in comprehenson, production reading and writing. They likely have ——————.
Global aphasia (never permanent)
There are two types of transcortical aphasias. Transcortical ————- aphasia occurs as a result of lesions in superior anterior regions of frontal lobe (extra-sylvian areas, around Broca’s area). Symptoms include disturbance of spontaneous speech (only short sentences of 1-3 words) while repetition is preserved). Transcortical —————— aphasia, on the other hand, occurs as a result of lesions isolated to posterior regions (usually right around Wernicke’s area). Symptoms include:
Relatively preserved repetition
Fluent, grammatical speech
Disturbance in single-word comprehension
Semantic paraphasia
There are two types of transcortical aphasias. Transcortical motor aphasia occurs as a result of lesions in superior anterior regions of frontal lobe (extra-sylvian areas, around Broca’s area). Symptoms include disturbance of spontaneous speech (only short sentences of 1-3 words) while repetition is preserved). Transcortical sensoryaphasia, on the other hand, occurs as a result of lesions isolated to posterior regions (usually right around Wernicke’s area). Symptoms include:
Relatively preserved repetition
Fluent, grammatical speech
Disturbance in single-word comprehension
Semantic paraphasia
When the watershead region around Broca’s, Wernicke’s and arcuate fasciculus area is damaged, this leads to ———————– ————– aphasia. Symptoms include: (name them)
Mixed transcortical aphasia. evere speaking and comprehension problems, but preserved repetition
Patients struggle to produce propositional language [‘today is a beautiful day → one proposition, ‘’I am going for a walk → second proposition; Today is a beautiful day so I’m going for a walk → creating meaning by combining two propositions; creating logical and meaningful sentences) or to understand what is being said to them
They can repeat long, complex utterances or finish a song once they what the first part
——————————————— results from the destruction of primary auditory cortixes. Symptoms include: an inability to comprehend the meaning of speech, but in most cases still retaining ability to speak, read and write and auditory halucinations. Patients with this condition can still detect sounds and are aware of their deficit.
Pure word deafness results from the destruction of primary auditory cortixes. Symptoms include: an inability to comprehend the meaning of speech, but in most cases still retaining ability to speak, read and write and auditory halucinations. Patients with this condition can still detect sounds and are aware of their deficit.
Pure word blindness (also alexia) typically results from a lesion in the left —————– gyrus and the ——– lobe. Patients can speak, spell and write without difficulty but cannot recognise words (/have great difficulties).
left angular gyrus and occipital lobe
One or more possible answers
Agrammatism is mainly defined as a functional deficit involving relative impairment in the use of:
A) Free morphemes
D) Function words
C) Bound morphemes
E) Content words
Agrammatism is mainly defined as a functional deficit involving relative impairment in the use of:
A) Free morphemes
D) Function words
C) Bound morphemes
E) Content words
Agrammatic sentences are short and ill-formed due to the frequent ommision (and, to some extent, inappropriate substitution) of obligatory gramamtical elements. Symptoms also include:
restriction in available vocabulary.
Speech is slow, effortful and there are articulatory difficulties.
The speaker relies chiefly on high information words (nouns, main verbs) to convey message.
There is frequent deletion of the article before nouns;
Few pronouns are used.
Verbs are uninflected, appearing either as the verb stem or in the –ing form.
Agrammatism can be understood as a disorder of sentence production in which aphasics patients typically delete grammatical formatives (auxiliaries, pronouns, determiners, inflections, …).
Discuss this senteces - do you agree? Disagree? What does research show?
Beginning in the 1970s comprehension was found to be compromised when it depended on inflectional morphemes, so it is not only production that is impaired. Aggramatics in particular have Difficulties in assigning thematic roles in reversible passives (the girl was chased by the boy), object relative clauses (the boy who the girl chased is fat), object clefts (it was the boy who the girl chased). ‘Who chased who’ - agrammatical patients will not understand/have great difficulties with them. Thus, comprehension is also affected in specific strucutres (passives, object relative clauses and object clefts).
One or more possible answers
Comprehension of patients with agrammatism is affected in the following structures:
A) Object relative clauses
B) Subject clefts
C) Passives
D) Subject relative clauses
Comprehension of patients with agrammatism is affected in the following structures:
A) Object relative clauses
B) Subject clefts
C) Passives
D) Subject relative clauses
