scholarly journals Faulty Suppression of Irrelevant Material in Patients with Thought Disorder Linked to Attenuated Frontotemporal Activation

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Arcuri ◽  
M. R. Broome ◽  
V. Giampietro ◽  
E. Amaro ◽  
T. T. J. Kircher ◽  
...  

Formal thought disorder is a feature schizophrenia that manifests as disorganized, incoherent speech, and is associated with a poor clinical outcome. The neurocognitive basis of this symptom is unclear but it is thought to involve an impairment in semantic processing classically described as a loosening of meaningful associations. Using a paradigm derived from the n400 event-related, potential, we examined the extent to which regional activation during semantic processing is altered in schizophrenic patients with formal thought disorder. Ten healthy control and 18 schizophrenic participants (9 with and 9 without formal thought disorder) performed a semantic decision sentence task during an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. We employed analysis of variance to estimate the main effects of semantic congruency and groups on activation and specific effects of formal thought disorder were addressed using post-hoc comparisons. We found that the frontotemporal network, normally engaged by a semantic decision task, was underactivated in schizophrenia, particularly in patients with FTD. This network is implicated in the inhibition of automatically primed stimuli and impairment of its function interferes with language processing and contributes to the production of incoherent speech.

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 3121-3131 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Visser ◽  
M. A. Lambon Ralph

Studies of semantic dementia and repetitive TMS have suggested that the bilateral anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) underpin a modality-invariant representational hub within the semantic system. However, it is not clear whether all ATL subregions contribute in the same way. We utilized distortion-corrected fMRI to investigate the pattern of activation in the left and right ATL when participants performed a semantic decision task on auditory words, environmental sounds, or pictures. This showed that the ATL is not functionally homogeneous but is more graded. Both left and right ventral ATL (vATL) responded to all modalities in keeping with the notion that this region underpins multimodality semantic processing. In addition, there were graded differences across the hemispheres. Semantic processing of both picture and environmental sound stimuli was associated with equivalent bilateral vATL activation, whereas auditory words generated greater activation in left than right vATL. This graded specialization for auditory stimuli would appear to reflect the input from the left superior ATL, which responded solely to semantic decisions on the basis of spoken words and environmental sounds, suggesting that this region is specialized to auditory stimuli. A final noteworthy result was that these regions were activated for domain level decisions to singly presented stimuli, which appears to be incompatible with the hypotheses that the ATL is dedicated (a) to the representation of specific entities or (b) for combinatorial semantic processes.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN STIRLING ◽  
JONATHAN HELLEWELL ◽  
ANDREW BLAKEY ◽  
WILLIAM DEAKIN

Background. Formal thought disorder (FTD) has long been regarded as a key sign of schizophrenia but little is known about its origins or aetiology. One suggestion is that it is directly related to disordered language functioning; a second is that it is a reflection of poor neurocognitive functioning. A current model posits that it is related to a combination of executive dysfunction and impaired semantic processing.Method. To examine these alternative ideas, a heterogeneous group of 30 patients, all carrying a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and 18 non-patient controls completed a series of neurocognitive and psycholinguistic tests, and a clinical review that, inter alia, permitted assessment of thought disorder (TD) using the Thought, Language and Communication Scale (TLC).Results. Patients generally performed at a lower level on most components of the test battery, but there was little evidence of a relationship between TD and syntactic psycholinguistic function. However, schizophrenic patients manifesting higher levels of TD performed at a lower level on tests sensitive to executive dysfunction and semantic impairments.Conclusions. The origins of TD seem more closely linked to deficits in executive functioning and semantic processing than to impairments in other language functions or general cognition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (10) ◽  
pp. 2094-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romy Räling ◽  
Sandra Hanne ◽  
Astrid Schröder ◽  
Carla Keßler ◽  
Isabell Wartenburger

The age at which members of a semantic category are learned (age of acquisition), the typicality they demonstrate within their corresponding category, and the semantic domain to which they belong (living, non-living) are known to influence the speed and accuracy of lexical/semantic processing. So far, only a few studies have looked at the origin of age of acquisition and its interdependence with typicality and semantic domain within the same experimental design. Twenty adult participants performed an animacy decision task in which nouns were classified according to their semantic domain as being living or non-living. Response times were influenced by the independent main effects of each parameter: typicality, age of acquisition, semantic domain, and frequency. However, there were no interactions. The results are discussed with respect to recent models concerning the origin of age of acquisition effects.


CNS Spectrums ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brita Elvevåg ◽  
Terry E. Goldberg

AbstractIn this article, we review attempts to account for the thought disorder present in some schizophrenic patients in terms of cognitive deficits in the domains of working memory, attention, language, and semantic memory. Although each psychological construct can account for some of the data described here, establishment of a primary cognitive impairment responsible for thought disorder is not forthcoming, perhaps due to its underlying multidimensional pathology. While the relationship of working memory, attention, and language processing to thought disorder is ambiguous, semantic memory is emerging as a promising construct, that may yield insight into cognitive mechanisms that underlie thought disorder and neuroleptic responsiveness.


Author(s):  
Emme O’Rourke ◽  
Emily L. Coderre

AbstractWhile many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties with language processing, non-linguistic semantic processing may be intact. We examined neural responses to an implicit semantic priming task by comparing N400 responses—an event-related potential related to semantic processing—in response to semantically related or unrelated pairs of words or pictures. Adults with ASD showed larger N400 responses than typically developing adults for pictures, but no group differences occurred for words. However, we also observed complex modulations of N400 amplitude by age and by level of autistic traits. These results offer important implications for how groups are delineated and compared in autism research.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Penke ◽  
Kathrin Schrader

The goal of this paper is to investigate the role phonology plays for visual word recognition and the change this role undergoes in the course of reading acquisition by providing data on German readers at different stages of reading proficiency. Erroneous responses in a semantic decision task, which employs words that are either homophonous or graphemically similar to a word of a previously introduced semantic field, were compared at different stages of reading development (i.e. in second- and fourth-grade school children and adults). In all age groups, subjects committed significantly more errors with homophones than with words graphemically similar to a word related to the given semantic field. The results show that phonological recoding plays an important role for visual word recognition not only with beginners but also in skilled readers and, hence, corroborate phonological models of reading.


NeuroImage ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. S264
Author(s):  
J.M. Goodman ◽  
A.D. Wagner ◽  
K. Kwong ◽  
R.M. Weisskoff ◽  
B.R. Rosen

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 549
Author(s):  
J. Lombardi ◽  
P.D. Harvey ◽  
M. Leibman ◽  
M. Parrella ◽  
L. White ◽  
...  

1992 ◽  
Vol 160 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. B. Davis ◽  
Milind Borde ◽  
L. N. Sharma

Cognitive impairment, negative and positive symptoms, primitive release reflexes, and age/temporal disorientation were assessed in 20 male patients meeting the DSM–III–R criteria for chronic schizophrenia and Schooler & Kane's criteria for TD. The control group comprised 20 age-matched male chronic schizophrenic patients without TD. Significant associations were found between TD, cognitive impairment, some negative symptoms, and formal thought disorder. These associations were independent of other illness and treatment variables. The severity of TD correlated significantly with that of cognitive impairment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document