-
Dementia & Neuropsychologia 2021The differential diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is challenging due to overlapping clinical manifestations of the different variants of the disease. This... (Review)
Review
The differential diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is challenging due to overlapping clinical manifestations of the different variants of the disease. This is particularly true for the logopenic variant of PPA (lvPPA), in which such overlap was reported with regard to impairments in repetition abilities. In this study, four individuals with lvPPA underwent standard neuropsychological and language assessments. The influence of psycholinguistic variables on their performance of in word, nonword and sentence repetition tasks was also specifically explored. Some level of heterogeneity was found in cognitive functions and in language. The four participants showed impairment in sentence repetition in which their performance was negatively affected by semantic reversibility and syntactic complexity. This study supports the heterogeneity of lvPPA with respect to the cognitive and linguistic status of participants. It also shows that sentence repetition is influenced not only by length, but also by semantic reversibility and syntactic complexity, two psycholinguistic variables known to place additional demands on phonological working memory.
PubMed: 34630930
DOI: 10.1590/1980-57642021dn15-030014 -
Differential Diagnosis Findings Between Alzheimer's Disease and Major Depressive Disorder: A Review.Psychiatry and Clinical... Mar 2022Differentiating diagnosis between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder in the elderly is a great clinical challenge. This study aimed to identify the...
BACKGROUND
Differentiating diagnosis between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder in the elderly is a great clinical challenge. This study aimed to identify the establishment of differential diagnosis protocols between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder.
METHODS
We searched studies in the Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases between 2009 and 2019. A total of 155 references were found for searching relevant articles using Boolean search. After exclusion of redundancies and assessing of title, abstract, and full text for eligibility, 11 articles were selected. The total sample size was 1077 distributed in 8 different countries.
RESULTS
Significant results were found for differential diagnosis between Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder, such as overall mental status, episodic memory, visuospatial construction, delayed recognition task, semantic verbal fluency, visual task in short-term memory, atrophy of the hippocampus, cortical activation in specific tasks, and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers.
CONCLUSION
These findings are good pathways for discriminating Alzheimer's disease from major depression in the elderly.
PubMed: 38764905
DOI: 10.5152/pcp.2022.21133 -
Journal of Dairy Science Oct 2023School lunch programs are mandated by the US Code of Federal Regulations to serve pasteurized milk that is skim or 1% fat and fortified with vitamins A and D. In recent...
School lunch programs are mandated by the US Code of Federal Regulations to serve pasteurized milk that is skim or 1% fat and fortified with vitamins A and D. In recent years, proposals have been made to alter nutritional requirements for school lunches and school lunch milk, including changes to the milk fat and flavor options available. The objective of this study was to evaluate parental understanding and perception of school lunch milk to better understand how changes to school lunch milk are perceived by parents. Four focus groups (n = 34) were conducted with parents of school-aged children (5-13 yr) who purchased milk as part of a lunch at school. Participants were asked about school lunch milk, including nutritional content, packaging, and flavoring. Focus groups included a build-your-own milk activity and discussion of children's milk products currently available on the market. Two subsequent online surveys were conducted with parents of school-aged children (survey 1, n = 216; survey 2, n = 133). Maximum difference scaling was used to evaluate what beverages parents would prefer their child to drink at school (survey 1) and which attributes of chocolate milk for children were most important to parents (survey 2). An adaptive choice-based conjoint activity (survey 1) included flavor, milk fat, heat treatment, label claims, and packaging type. Both surveys included questions to evaluate knowledge of milk nutrition and attitudes regarding milk and flavored milk. Agree/disagree questions were used in both surveys to assess parental opinions of school lunch milk. Survey 2 also included semantic differential (sliding scale) questions to assess parental opinions of chocolate milk and their acceptance of sugar alternatives in chocolate milk served in schools. Parents were familiar with the flavor options and packaging of school lunch milk, but expressed limited familiarity with school lunch milk fat content. Parents perceived milk to be healthy and a good source of vitamin D and calcium. From survey results, parents placed the highest importance on school lunch milk packaging, followed by milk fat percentage and flavoring over label claims and heat treatment. The ideal school lunch milk for parents was unflavored (white milk) or chocolate, 2% fat, and packaged in a cardboard gabletop carton. For school lunch chocolate milk, 3 distinct clusters of parents with differing opinions for children's chocolate milk were identified. Parents are largely unfamiliar with the specific attributes and nutritional profile of milk served in schools but believe that schools should offer milk to their children as part of breakfast and lunch. Parents in both surveys also displayed a preference for 2% fat milk over low-fat options, which provides actionable insight for both governmental bodies determining educational and nutritional policies for school meals and fluid milk producers seeking to optimize their products intended for schools.
Topics: Humans; Child; Animals; Milk; Lunch; Beverages; Parents; Perception
PubMed: 37210362
DOI: 10.3168/jds.2023-23326 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023Alterations of verbalized thought occur frequently in psychotic disorders. We characterize linguistic findings in individuals with schizophrenia based on the current... (Review)
Review
INTRODUCTION
Alterations of verbalized thought occur frequently in psychotic disorders. We characterize linguistic findings in individuals with schizophrenia based on the current literature, including findings relevant for differential and early diagnosis.
METHODS
Review of literature published via PubMed search between January 2010 and May 2022.
RESULTS
A total of 143 articles were included. In persons with schizophrenia, language-related alterations can occur at all linguistic levels. Differentiating from findings in persons with affective disorders, typical symptoms in those with schizophrenia mainly include so-called "poverty of speech," reduced word and sentence production, impaired processing of complex syntax, pragmatic language deficits as well as reduced semantic verbal fluency. At the at-risk state, "poverty of content," pragmatic difficulties and reduced verbal fluency could be of predictive value.
DISCUSSION
The current results support multilevel alterations of the language system in persons with schizophrenia. Creative expressions of psychotic experiences are frequently found but are not in the focus of this review. Clinical examinations of linguistic alterations can support differential diagnostics and early detection. Computational methods (Natural Language Processing) may improve the precision of corresponding diagnostics. The relations between language-related and other symptoms can improve diagnostics.
PubMed: 38078276
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287706 -
Brain Sciences Oct 2022Number-color synesthesia is a condition in which synesthetes perceive numbers with concurrent experience of specific, corresponding colors. It has been proposed that...
Number-color synesthesia is a condition in which synesthetes perceive numbers with concurrent experience of specific, corresponding colors. It has been proposed that synesthetic association exists primarily between representations of Arabic digit graphemes and colors, and a secondary, semantic connection between numerosity and colors is built via repeated co-activation. However, this distinction between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthetic number-color connection has not been empirically tested. The current study aims to dissociate graphemic and semantic aspects of color activations in number-color synesthesia by comparing their time courses. We adopted a synesthetic priming paradigm with varied stimuli onset asynchronies (SOAs). A number (2-6, prime) was presented in one of three notations: digit, dice, or non-canonical dot pattern, and a color patch (target) appeared with an SOA of 0, 100, 300, 400, or 800 ms. Participants reported the color as quickly as possible. Using the congruency effect (i.e., shorter reaction time when target color matched the synesthetic color of number prime) as an index of synesthetic color activation level, we revealed that the effect from the graphemic pathway is quick and relatively persistent, while the effect from the semantic pathway unfolds at a later stage and is more transient. The dissociation between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthesia implies further functional distinction within "conceptual synesthesia", which has been originally discussed as a unitary phenomenon. This distinction has been demonstrated by the differential time courses of synesthetic color activations, and suggested that a presumed, single type of synesthesia could involve multiple mechanisms.
PubMed: 36291334
DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12101400 -
Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2022The chapter covers the clinical syndrome of a primary progressive aphasia (PPA), the demographics of this rare neurodegenerative disease, defining clinical and... (Review)
Review
The chapter covers the clinical syndrome of a primary progressive aphasia (PPA), the demographics of this rare neurodegenerative disease, defining clinical and neuroanatomic characteristics of each PPA variant, disease progression, and behavioral features. The chapter begins with a brief introduction that includes references to seminal papers that defined this clinical syndrome and its three variants. The classic PPA subtypes discussed in the chapter are semantic variant PPA (svPPA), nonfluent/agrammatic PPA (nfaPPA), and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA). The key language and cognitive characteristics, and language tasks that can elicit these language impairments, are detailed. Overlap in the clinical profiles of the PPA variants, which make differential diagnosis challenging, are explained. Disease progression is described, revealing that the PPA variants become more similar over time. Although PPA is language-predominant dementia, there are behavioral manifestations, particularly in svPPA. Changes in behavior in this variant are addressed as well as behavioral changes in nfaPPA and lvPPA that are less well recognized. The patterns of atrophy in the left temporal, parietal, and/or frontal cortices unique to each PPA variant are described. The underlying neuropathologies of the PPA variants are discussed, specifically tauopathies and non-tauopathies associated with svPPA and nfaPPA and Alzheimer's disease pathology in lvPPA.
Topics: Alzheimer Disease; Aphasia, Primary Progressive; Humans; Language; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Neuroimaging
PubMed: 35078612
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-823384-9.00016-5 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Feb 2020Intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) identified through task-free fMRI (tf-fMRI) offer the opportunity to investigate human brain circuits involved in language... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) identified through task-free fMRI (tf-fMRI) offer the opportunity to investigate human brain circuits involved in language processes without requiring participants to perform challenging cognitive tasks. In this study, we assessed the ability of tf-fMRI to isolate reproducible networks critical for specific language functions and often damaged in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). First, we performed whole-brain seed-based correlation analyses on tf-fMRI data to identify ICNs anchored in regions known for articulatory, phonological, and semantic processes in healthy male and female controls (HCs). We then evaluated the reproducibility of these ICNs in an independent cohort of HCs, and recapitulated their functional relevance with a meta-analysis on task-based fMRI. Last, we investigated whether atrophy in these ICNs could inform the differential diagnosis of nonfluent/agrammatic, semantic, and logopenic PPA variants. The identified ICNs included a dorsal articulatory-phonological network involving inferior frontal and supramarginal regions; a ventral semantic network involving anterior middle temporal and angular gyri; a speech perception network involving superior temporal and sensorimotor regions; and a network between posterior inferior temporal and intraparietal regions likely linking visual, phonological, and attentional processes for written language. These ICNs were highly reproducible across independent groups and revealed areas consistent with those emerging from task-based meta-analysis. By comparing ICNs' spatial distribution in HCs with patients' atrophy patterns, we identified ICNs associated with each PPA variant. Our findings demonstrate the potential use of tf-fMRI to investigate the functional status of language networks in patients for whom activation studies can be methodologically challenging. We showed that a single, short, task-free fMRI acquisition is able to identify four reproducible and relatively segregated intrinsic left-dominant networks associated with articulatory, phonological, semantic, and multimodal orthography-to-phonology processes, in HCs. We also showed that these intrinsic networks relate to syndrome-specific atrophy patterns in primary progressive aphasia. Collectively, our results support the application of task-free fMRI in future research to study functionality of language circuits in patients for whom tasked-based activation studies might be methodologically challenging.
Topics: Aged; Aphasia, Primary Progressive; Brain; Female; Humans; Language; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Nerve Net; Neuroimaging
PubMed: 31852732
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1485-19.2019 -
Cognitive Research: Principles and... Nov 2022Intersectionality refers to the simultaneous and interacting effects of multiple group categorization on individuals with minoritized status, often leading to being...
Intersectionality refers to the simultaneous and interacting effects of multiple group categorization on individuals with minoritized status, often leading to being perceived in a manner inconsistent with the additive contributions of those categories. For Black women, a number of findings have contributed to the idea that Black women have a unique perceived absence of status, for example, and are perceived as distinct from being Black or a woman. We sought to quantify and visualize the combined effects of race and gender on judgments of persons using data-defined dimensions (the Semantic Differential; Osgood et al. in The measurement of meaning, University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 1957). Our data suggest that gender and race contribute to orthogonal dimensions of difference in the perception of persons. Whereas white males, white females, and Black males all seem to be perceived in accord with additive effects in these two dimensions, Black females seem to be perceived more neutrally, as if neither their gender nor their race is treated as predictive.
Topics: Male; Humans; Female; Intersectional Framework; Black People; Gender Identity
PubMed: 36435861
DOI: 10.1186/s41235-022-00450-1 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Jul 2019Reading involves the rapid extraction of sound and meaning from print through a cooperative division of labor between phonological and lexical-semantic processes....
Reading involves the rapid extraction of sound and meaning from print through a cooperative division of labor between phonological and lexical-semantic processes. Whereas lesion studies of patients with stereotyped acquired reading deficits contributed to the notion of a dissociation between phonological and lexical-semantic reading, the neuroanatomical basis for effects of lexicality (word vs pseudoword), orthographic regularity (regular vs irregular spelling-sound correspondences), and concreteness (concrete vs abstract meaning) on reading is underspecified, particularly outside the context of strong behavioral dissociations. Support vector regression lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) of 73 left hemisphere stroke survivors (male and female human subjects) not preselected for stereotyped dissociations revealed the differential contributions of specific cortical regions to reading pseudowords (ventral precentral gyrus), regular words (planum temporale, supramarginal gyrus, ventral precentral and postcentral gyrus, and insula), and concrete words (pars orbitalis and pars triangularis). Consistent with the primary systems view of reading being parasitic on language-general circuitry, our multivariate LSM analyses revealed that phonological decoding depends on perisylvian areas subserving sound-motor integration and that semantic effects on reading depend on frontal cortex subserving control over concrete semantic representations that aid phonological access from print. As the first study to localize the differential cortical contributions to reading pseudowords, regular words, and concrete words in stroke survivors with variable reading abilities, our results provide important information on the neurobiological basis of reading and highlight the insights attainable through multivariate, process-based approaches to alexia. Whereas fMRI evidence for neuroanatomical dissociations between phonological and lexical-semantic reading is abundant, evidence from modern lesion studies establishing the differential contributions of specific brain regions to specific reading processes is lacking. Our application of multivariate lesion-symptom mapping revealed that effects of lexicality, orthographic regularity, and concreteness on reading differentially depend on areas subserving auditory-motor integration and semantic control. Phonological decoding of print relies on a dorsal perisylvian network supporting auditory and articulatory representations, with unfamiliar words relying especially on articulatory mapping. In tandem with this dorsal decoding system, anterior inferior frontal gyrus may coordinate control over concrete semantic representations that support mapping of print to sound, which is a novel potential mechanism for semantic influences on reading.
Topics: Adult; Brain; Female; Humans; Linguistics; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Reading; Semantics; Stroke
PubMed: 31061085
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2707-18.2019 -
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision... Apr 2022Bio-entity Coreference Resolution (CR) is a vital task in biomedical text mining. An important issue in CR is the differential representation of identical mentions as...
BACKGROUND
Bio-entity Coreference Resolution (CR) is a vital task in biomedical text mining. An important issue in CR is the differential representation of identical mentions as their similar representations may make the coreference more puzzling. However, when extracting features, existing neural network-based models may bring additional noise to the distinction of identical mentions since they tend to get similar or even identical feature representations.
METHODS
We propose a context-aware feature attention model to distinguish similar or identical text units effectively for better resolving coreference. The new model can represent the identical mentions based on different contexts by adaptively exploiting features, which enables the model reduce the text noise and capture the semantic information effectively.
RESULTS
The experimental results show that the proposed model brings significant improvements on most of the baseline for coreference resolution and mention detection on the BioNLP dataset and CRAFT-CR dataset. The empirical studies further demonstrate its superior performance on the differential representation and coreferential link of identical mentions.
CONCLUSIONS
Identical mentions impose difficulties on the current methods of Bio-entity coreference resolution. Thus, we propose the context-aware feature attention model to better distinguish identical mentions and achieve superior performance on both coreference resolution and mention detection, which will further improve the performance of the downstream tasks.
Topics: Data Mining; Humans; Neural Networks, Computer; Semantics
PubMed: 35501781
DOI: 10.1186/s12911-022-01862-1