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Receptive prosody in nonfluent primary progressive aphasias
Jonathan D Rohrer1, Disa Sauter, Sophie Scott
1Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK. rohrer@dementia.ion.ucl.ac.uk
Summary
Primary progressive aphasias (PPAs) impair prosody processing. Patients with nonfluent PPA syndromes show deficits in acoustic, linguistic, and emotional prosody, linked to brain atrophy.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Linguistics
- Neurology
Background:
- Prosody processing remains understudied in primary progressive aphasias (PPAs).
- PPAs are neurodegenerative disorders characterized by progressive language impairment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically investigate prosody processing across acoustic, linguistic, and emotional dimensions in nonfluent PPA syndromes.
- To identify neuroanatomical correlates of prosodic function deficits using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).
Main Methods:
- Studied 19 patients with nonfluent PPA syndromes (PNFA, LPA, GRN-PPA) and healthy controls.
- Assessed acoustic, linguistic, and emotional prosody processing.
- Utilized VBM to correlate brain atrophy with prosodic deficits.
Main Results:
- All PPA subgroups showed comparable deficits in acoustic, linguistic, and emotional prosody.
- Impaired discrimination of prosodic contours, intonation, and stress was observed.
- Vocal emotion recognition was more impaired than facial expression recognition, with specific difficulties for disgust and fear.
- VBM identified atrophy in distributed cortical networks, including temporal, parietal, and fronto-parietal regions, associated with prosodic impairments.
Conclusions:
- Receptive prosody is significantly impaired in nonfluent PPA syndromes.
- Findings suggest an early, general deficit in prosodic signal analysis with specific deficits in vocal emotion recognition.
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