TY - JOUR
T1 - More than a piece of cake
T2 - Noun classifier processing in primary progressive aphasia
AU - Lead Tee, Boon
AU - Kwan-Chen Li-Ying, Lorinda
AU - Chen, Ta-Fu
AU - TY Yan, Connie
AU - Tsoh, Joshua
AU - Lung-Tat Chan, Andrew
AU - Wong, Adrian
AU - Y. Lo, Raymond
AU - Jung Lu, Chien
AU - Sun, Yu
AU - Wang, Pei-Ning
AU - Lee, YiChen
AU - Chiu, Ming-Jang
AU - Allen, Isabel Elaine
AU - Battistella, Giovanni
AU - Bak, Thomas
AU - Chuang, Yu-Chen
AU - M. García, Adolfo
AU - Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
N1 - /
PY - 2024/1/29
Y1 - 2024/1/29
N2 - INTRODUCTION: Clinical understanding of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) has been primarily derived from Indo-European languages. Generalizing certain linguistic findings across languages is unfitting due to contrasting linguistic structures. While PPA patients showed noun classes impairments, Chinese languages lack noun classes. Instead, Chinese languages are classifier language, and how PPA patients manipulate classifiers is unknown. METHODS: We included 74 native Chinese speakers (22 controls, 52 PPA). For classifier production task, participants were asked to produce the classifiers of high-frequency items. In a classifier recognition task, participants were asked to choose the correct classifier. RESULTS: Both semantic variant (sv) PPA and logopenic variant (lv) PPA scored significantly lower in classifier production task. In classifier recognition task, lvPPA patients outperformed svPPA patients. The classifier production scores were correlated to cortical volume over left temporal and visual association cortices. DISCUSSION: This study highlights noun classifiers as linguistic markers to discriminate PPA syndromes in Chinese speakers. Highlights: Noun classifier processing varies in the different primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants. Specifically, semantic variant PPA (svPPA) and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA) patients showed significantly lower ability in producing specific classifiers. Compared to lvPPA, svPPA patients were less able to choose the accurate classifiers when presented with choices. In svPPA, classifier production score was positively correlated with gray matter volume over bilateral temporal and left visual association cortices in svPPA. Conversely, classifier production performance was correlated with volumetric changes over left ventral temporal and bilateral frontal regions in lvPPA. Comparable performance of mass and count classifier were noted in Chinese PPA patients, suggesting a common cognitive process between mass and count classifiers in Chinese languages.
AB - INTRODUCTION: Clinical understanding of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) has been primarily derived from Indo-European languages. Generalizing certain linguistic findings across languages is unfitting due to contrasting linguistic structures. While PPA patients showed noun classes impairments, Chinese languages lack noun classes. Instead, Chinese languages are classifier language, and how PPA patients manipulate classifiers is unknown. METHODS: We included 74 native Chinese speakers (22 controls, 52 PPA). For classifier production task, participants were asked to produce the classifiers of high-frequency items. In a classifier recognition task, participants were asked to choose the correct classifier. RESULTS: Both semantic variant (sv) PPA and logopenic variant (lv) PPA scored significantly lower in classifier production task. In classifier recognition task, lvPPA patients outperformed svPPA patients. The classifier production scores were correlated to cortical volume over left temporal and visual association cortices. DISCUSSION: This study highlights noun classifiers as linguistic markers to discriminate PPA syndromes in Chinese speakers. Highlights: Noun classifier processing varies in the different primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants. Specifically, semantic variant PPA (svPPA) and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA) patients showed significantly lower ability in producing specific classifiers. Compared to lvPPA, svPPA patients were less able to choose the accurate classifiers when presented with choices. In svPPA, classifier production score was positively correlated with gray matter volume over bilateral temporal and left visual association cortices in svPPA. Conversely, classifier production performance was correlated with volumetric changes over left ventral temporal and bilateral frontal regions in lvPPA. Comparable performance of mass and count classifier were noted in Chinese PPA patients, suggesting a common cognitive process between mass and count classifiers in Chinese languages.
KW - Chinese language
KW - lemma
KW - lexical syntactic attributes
KW - noun classifier
KW - primary progressive aphasia
U2 - 10.1002/alz.13701
DO - 10.1002/alz.13701
M3 - Article
C2 - 38284802
AN - SCOPUS:85183913503
SN - 1552-5260
JO - Alzheimer's and Dementia
JF - Alzheimer's and Dementia
ER -