Language Flashcards
What happens in Broca’s aphasia?
Impaired speech production and writing deficits. Difficulty retrieving correct words for ideas they wish to express (anomia)
Loss of all language functions
Global aphasia
What do mice with human FOXP2 genes exhibit that is significant?
Enhanced ability to make transitions from a declarative to a procedural mode of learning
What happens in transcortical sensory aphasia?
Fluent speech with impaired cognition. Deficits in word meanings
Inability to write
Agraphia
What is observed in the brains of people who stutter?
Abnormal lateralization of speech areas and high activity in the basal ganglia
What is perseveration?
Pathological repetition of the same response for different questions
Speech remains fluent and comprehension is fairly good. Difficulty repeating speech
Conduction aphasia
What region of the brain shows increased gray matter density in bilinguals compared to monolinguals?
Left inferior parietal region
What happens in dyslexia?
Difficulty learning to read (affects 10-30% of population), poor phonological awareness, over-activation of rostral language areas, and lack of activation of posterior language areas
What brain arteries are involved in language?
Anterior cerebral artery, middle cerebral artery, and posterior cerebral artery
What usually causes stuttering?
Genetics
What types of fonts are hard for dyslexic people to read?
Digital fonts like the ones on scoreboards and times new roman
What could the FOXP2 gene be important in?
Health of the basal ganglia
What are neologisms? Where are they often seen?
Made up words and words meshed together. Often in people with Wernickes aphasia
What aphasia impacts life the least?
Conduction aphasia
What does American sign language combine?
Language (left hemisphere) and spatial processing (right hemisphere)
What is prosody?
The musical quality of language. Like elevating pitch in the last word to indicate a question
What areas of the brain was significantly impacted in developmental verbal apraxia?
Caudate nucleus and putamen of basal ganglia
How is recovery from an aphasia determined?
If what caused it is resolved and age. Younger people recover easier due to plasticity. Most recovery occurs in the first year after it happens
When does the planum temporale show more symmetry than normal?
Dyslexia and perfect pitch
What can be seen in dyslexic brains compared to normal brains?
Less extensive connectivity in left hemisphere, more symmetry, and many more pathways in the right hemisphere
What is still in tact in Broca’s aphasia?
Comprehension and singing
Four structures of a language
Sentence, phrases, words or morphemes (meanings), and phonemes (sounds)
Language symptoms of schizophrenia
Neologisms, word salad, perseveration, clang associations, and echolalia
What happens in Wernickes aphasia?
Comprehension for both spoken and written word impaired. Speech is rapid and fluent but meaningless. Seem unaware they make no sense. Neologisms common
What are neologisms?
Creating/contracting new words for complex ideas
What do cells in the planum temporale show in dyslexia?
A lack of normal layering and arrangement of columns. They may have migrated into superficial layers
What happens in transcortical aphasia?
Speech is not fluent but words can be repeated. Affects higher cognitive aspects of speech production (generation verbs to match nouns)
What did the KE family have and what is it associated with?
FOXP2 mutation causing developmental verbal apraxia
What language can be taught to a baby to benefit it?
Sign language
What does the right hemisphere play a role in?
Prosody (musical quality fo language. Elevating pitch in last word indicated a question)
What happens to infants by 11 months?
They can only distinguish sounds in native language at home
Koko the gorilla and language example
Koko learned sign language but wasn’t always reliable. More operant conditioning than language
What is the dorsal pathway?
Conversion of sound to movement and speech. Dual stream language model part
What happens when the FOXP2 gene is knocked out in a knock out study?
Limited lifespan, developmental delays, fewer ultrasonic vocalizations, altered basal ganglia
What is developmental verbal apraxia and what are symptoms of it?
A disability that causes trouble in speech due to a FOXP2 mutation. Symptoms: rigidity of lower half of face, can’t complete pronouncing a word, significant difficulty with consonants, stuttering, limited vocabulary, impairments in reading, writing, and verbal IQ
What is the Wernicke-Geschwind model of language?
Broca’s area is responsible for speech and Wernicke’s area is responsible for comprehension. Most known and accepted
When did language supposedly develop?
When tool use was developing
What can infants distinguish at 8 months?
All speech sounds. All sounds from all languages
Where are Broca’s and Wernickes area more commonly found?
Left hemisphere
What area does not show typical hemispheric asymmetry in dyslexia?
Planum temporale. It is more symmetric in dyslexia
What is asymmetry related to?
Dyslexia
Treatments for stuttering
Reducing rates at which speech is produced and stress associated with the disorder and reducing stress in general
What are the two pathways in the dual stream language model
Ventral pathway and dorsal pathway
What is anomia?
Difficulty retrieving correct words for ideas they wish to express
Fluency, comprehension, and repetition in the aphasias
Brocas: no, yes, no Wernickes: yes, no, no Conduction: yes, yes, no Transcortical motor: no, yes, yes Transcortical sensory: yes, no, yes Transcortical mixed: no, no, yes Global: no, no, no
What did patient tan have?
A giant hole in Broca’s area
What happens when the human FOXP2 gene is knocked in in a knock in study?
Generally healthy, different ultrasonic vocalizations (frequencies or times), less exploratory behavior, less dopamine, increased dendrite length and synaptic plasticity in basal ganglia (ripe for learning procedural motor actions)
Speech is rapid and fluent but meaningless
Wernickes aphasia
Why aren’t reading and writing disorders typically diagnosed in young kids?
It takes time to develop reading and writing skills
What is transcortical motor aphasia a less severe version of?
Brocas aphasia
What are the visual symptoms of dyslexia?
Visual-perceptual difficulties (reading words backwards)
Confusing mirror image letters
Trouble fixating on printed words
Words appear to move around the page
Where is Wernickes area? What does it do?
Located just below left superior temporal gyrus. Comprehension
What are the three interacting language components and what do they show?
Language implementation, meditational system, and conceptual system. Shows it is hard to point to parts of the brain in language
Differences between language and communication
Language includes syntax and generativity. Humans can produce novel sentences but animals can’t
What is echolalia?
Repeating of words or phrases of one person by another
The path connecting Broca’s and Wernickes area. Other pathways like it likely exist
Arcuate fasciculus
What are clang associations?
Using words similar in sound, but not in meaning. Excessive rhyming
Difference in human and animal FOXP2 genes
Found in different forms in different species
Serious speech deficit that renders a person unable to communicate effectively; caused by damage to the brain. Problems with speaking, fluency, and comprehension
Aphasia
What area has over-activation in dyslexia?
Rostral language areas
What gene is related to language and when did it supposedly show mutations?
FOXP2. 100,000 years ago around tool use
What is the heritability of dyslexia?
40%
What are primary causes for aphasias?
Strokes
Fluent, grammatical speech, but comprehension is impaired. Impact certain parts of speech like nouns, verbs, etc.
Transcortical aphasias
What does the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex do in language?
Acts as a switch between languages based on context. Dreaming in another language shows increased activity here
What area has a lack of activation in dyslexia?
Posterior language areas
What is observed in the brains of multilingual people?
More overlapping activity, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex acting as a language switch, and executive attentional processing by the inferior parietal lobe
Lack of ability to speak clearly
Brocas aphasia
Where are language production and comprehension almost always located?
Left hemisphere
What are some positive outcomes of bilingualism?
Children perform better on tests of executive control (waiting for 2 marshmallows instead of taking 1) and it is associated with a delay in the onset of age related dementia
What is word salad?
Unintelligible mixture of words and phrases
At what age is a language retained better if it is learned at that age?
A young age. The younger the better
What happens in a dyslexic brain while reading aloud?
Less activation of the angular gyrus and Wernickes area and increased activation of Broca’s area
Difficulty learning to read
Dyslexia
Problems with the Wernicke-Geschwind model of language
Too simplistic
What do sign language users process differently from non sign language users?
Movement
What happens in conduction aphasia?
Damage to Arcuate fasciculus causes difficulties with repetition of sentences. Impacts life the least
What can the right hemisphere do if the left hemisphere experiences damage early in life?
Take over the language functions
What brain structure covers most language areas and a stroke there would be almost certainly fatal?
Middle cerebral artery
Sign language compared to a spoken language
Brain imaging shows same patterns of activation. Contains all aspects of spoken language
Awareness of people with Broca’s and Wernickes aphasia
In Brocas, they know something is wrong. In Wernickes, they seem unaware they make no sense
What is phonological awareness?
Linking specific sounds to meanings
Normal speech and comprehension, but unable to read or recognize letters
Alexia
What were supposedly the first types of languages?
Click languages
Where is Broca’s area? What does it do?
Left inferior frontal gyrus. Motor speech
What is the ventral pathway?
Conversion of sound to meaning. Dual stream language model part
