Lecture 13: Neuropsychology of Language

Question 1

Agraphia

Answer 1

decline in or loss of the ability to write

Question 2

Alexia

Answer 2

inability to read

Question 3

Anarthria

Answer 3

paralysis or incoordination of musculature of the mouth

Question 4

Paraphasia

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Wernicke Aphasia

Answer 5

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

also called sensory aphasia

Question 6

Word Salad

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Transcortical Aphasia

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Conduction Aphasia

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Amnesic Aphasia

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Expressive Aphasia

Answer 10

non-fluent aphasia involving a severe deficit in producing language

also called Broca’s aphasia

Question 11

What are phonemes?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What are morphemes?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

What is a lexicon?

Answer 13

collection of all the words in a language (vocabulary)

Question 14

What is syntax?

Answer 14

meaning of words and sentences

Question 15

What is prosody?

Answer 15

vocal intentions

Question 16

What is discourse?

Answer 16

stringing sentences together to form a meaningful narrative

Question 17

What is the Wernicke-Geshwind Model?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What is aphasia?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What are the problems of classification of aphasia?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What are the different types of aphasia?

Answer 20

sensory: posterior perisylvian

production: inferior frontal, precentral

conduction: arcuate fasciculus

transcortical sensory: tempoparietaloccipital

transcortical motor: medial frontal

mixed transcortical: frontal and parietal

Question 21

What is sensory (fluent) aphasia?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

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

Answer 22

auditory areas of the brain

sensory association areas

Question 23

What is production (motor) aphasia?

Answer 23

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)

Question 24

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

Answer 24

motor areas of the brain

frontal lobes

Question 25

What is the functional organization of bilingualism?

Answer 25

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)

Question 26

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

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is the model for how language breaks down?

Answer 27

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

Question 28

What is conduction aphasia?

Answer 28

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

Question 29

What are the areas of damage in conduction aphasia?

Answer 29

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