The letter-guided naming fluency task is a measure of an individual's executive function and working memory. This study employed a novel, automated, quantifiable, and reproducible method to ...investigate how language characteristics of words produced during a fluency task are related to fluency performance, inter-word response time (RT), and over task duration using digitized F-letter-guided fluency recordings produced by 76 young healthy participants. Our automated algorithm counted the number of correct responses from the transcripts of the F-letter fluency data, and individual words were rated for concreteness, ambiguity, frequency, familiarity, and age of acquisition (AoA). Using a forced aligner, the transcripts were automatically aligned with the corresponding audio recordings. We measured inter-word RT, word duration, and word start time from the forced alignments. Articulation rate was also computed. Phonetic and semantic distances between two consecutive F-letter words were measured. We found that total F-letter score was significantly correlated with the mean values of word frequency, familiarity, AoA, word duration, phonetic similarity, and articulation rate; total score was also correlated with an individual's standard deviation of AoA, familiarity, and phonetic similarity. RT was negatively correlated with frequency and ambiguity of F-letter words and was positively correlated with AoA, number of phonemes, and phonetic and semantic distances. Lastly, the frequency, ambiguity, AoA, number of phonemes, and semantic distance of words produced significantly changed over time during the task. The method employed in this paper demonstrates the successful implementation of our automated language processing pipelines in a standardized neuropsychological task. This novel approach captures subtle and rich language characteristics during test performance that enhance informativeness and cannot be extracted manually without massive effort. This work will serve as the reference for letter-guided category fluency production similarly acquired in neurodegenerative patients.
IMPORTANCE An increasingly varied clinical spectrum of cases with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been identified, and objective criteria for clinical trial eligibility are necessary. ...OBJECTIVE To develop a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker sensitive and specific for the diagnosis of ALS. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A case-control study including 51 individuals with ALS and 23 individuals with a disorder associated with a 4-repeat tauopathy was conducted at an academic medical center. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The CSF level of tau phosphorylated at threonine 181 (ptau) and ratio of ptau to total tau (ttau). RESULTS Using a cross-validation prediction procedure, we found significantly reduced CSF levels of ptau and the ptau:ttau ratio in ALS relative to 4-repeat tauopathy and to controls. In the validation cohort, the receiver operating characteristic area under the curve for the ptau:ttau ratio was 0.916, and the comparison of ALS with 4-repeat tauopathy showed 92.0% sensitivity and 91.7% specificity. Correct classification based on a low CSF ptau:ttau ratio was confirmed in 18 of 21 cases (86%) with autopsy-proved or genetically determined disease. In patients with available measures, ptau:ttau in ALS correlated with clinical measures of disease severity, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination (n = 51) and ALS Functional Rating Scale–Revised (n = 42), and regression analyses related the ptau:ttau ratio to magnetic resonance imaging (n = 10) evidence of disease in the corticospinal tract and white matter projections involving the prefrontal cortex. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The CSF ptau:ttau ratio may be a candidate biomarker to provide objective support for the diagnosis of ALS.
C9ORF72
-hexanucleotide repeat expansions and ubiquilin-2 (
UBQLN2
) mutations are recently identified genetic markers in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration ...(FTLD). We investigate the relationship between
C9ORF72
expansions and the clinical phenotype and neuropathology of ALS and FTLD. Genetic analysis and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were performed on autopsy-confirmed ALS (
N
= 75), FTLD-TDP (
N
= 30), AD (
N
= 14), and controls (
N
= 11). IHC for neurodegenerative disease pathology consisted of C9ORF72, UBQLN, p62, and TDP-43. A
C9ORF72
expansion was identified in 19.4 % of ALS and 31 % of FTLD-TDP cases. ALS cases with
C9ORF72
expansions frequently showed a bulbar onset of disease (57 %) and more rapid disease progression to death compared to non-expansion cases. Staining with
C9ORF72
antibodies did not yield specific pathology. UBQLN pathology showed a highly distinct pattern in ALS and FTLD-TDP cases with the
C9ORF72
expansion, with UBQLN-positive cytoplasmic inclusions in the cerebellar granular layer and extensive UBQLN-positive aggregates and dystrophic neurites in the hippocampal molecular layer and CA regions. These UBQLN pathologies were sufficiently unique to allow correct prediction of cases that were later confirmed to have
C9ORF72
expansions by genetic analysis. UBQLN pathology partially co-localized with p62, and to a minor extent with TDP-43 positive dystrophic neurites and spinal cord skein-like inclusions. Our data indicate a pathophysiological link between
C9ORF72
expansions and UBQLN proteins in ALS and FTLD-TDP that is associated with a highly characteristic pattern of UBQLN pathology. Our study indicates that this pathology is associated with alterations in clinical phenotype, and suggests that the presence of
C9ORF72
repeat expansions may indicate a worse prognosis in ALS.
We investigated the occurrence of goal-directed motivational change in the form of apathy in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), particularly those with behavioral variant social and ...executive deficits (bvFTD). Standardized behavioral inventory was employed to survey and compare apathy ratings from patients and caregivers. In cases of bvFTD, apathy ratings were further related to measures of social cognition, executive function, and atrophy on brain MRI. Results indicated that caregivers rated bvFTD patients as having significantly elevated apathy scores though patient self-ratings were normal. Caregiver and self-ratings of FTD samples with progressive nonfluent aphasia and semantic dementia did not differ from healthy controls and their informants. In the bvFTD sample, caregiver apathy scores were not correlated with general cognitive screening or depression scores, but were significantly correlated with social cognition and executive function measures. Voxel-based morphometry revealed that apathy ratings in bvFTD were related to prominent atrophy in the right caudate (including the ventral striatum), the right temporo-parietal junction, right posterior inferior and middle temporal gyri, and left frontal operculum- anterior insula region. Findings suggest that bvFTD is associated with a significant breakdown in goal-directed motivated behavior involving disruption of cortical-basal ganglia circuits that is also related to social and executive function deficits.
Introduction
The ATN framework provides an in vivo diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of pathologic amyloid plaques (A), tangles (T), and ...neurodegeneration (N). ATN is rarely evaluated in pathologically confirmed patients and its poor sensitivity to suspected non‐Alzheimer's pathophysiologies (SNAP), including frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), leads to misdiagnoses. We compared accuracy of ATN (ATNTAU) using CSF total tau (t‐tau) to a modified strategy (ATNNfL) using CSF neurofilament light chain (NfL) in an autopsy cohort.
Methods
ATNTAU and ATNNfL were trained in an independent sample and validated in autopsy‐confirmed AD (n = 67) and FTLD (n = 27).
Results
ATNNfL more accurately identified FTLD as SNAP (sensitivity = 0.93, specificity = 0.94) than ATNTAU (sensitivity = 0.44, specificity = 0.97), even in cases with co‐occurring AD and FTLD. ATNNfL misclassified fewer AD and FTLD as “Normal” (2%) than ATNTAU (14%).
Discussion
ATNNfL is a promising diagnostic strategy that may accurately identify both AD and FTLD, even when pathologies co‐occur.
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) with either tau (FTLD-tau) or TDP-43 (FTLD-TDP) inclusions are distinct proteinopathies that frequently cause similar frontotemporal dementia (FTD) clinical ...syndromes. FTD syndromes often display macroscopic signatures of neurodegeneration at the level of regions and networks, but it is unclear if subregional laminar pathology display patterns unique to proteinopathy or clinical syndrome. We hypothesized that FTLD-tau and FTLD-TDP accumulate pathology in relatively distinct cortical layers independent of clinical syndrome, with greater involvement of lower layers in FTLD-tau. The current study examined 170 patients with either FTLD-tau (
n
= 73) or FTLD-TDP (
n
= 97) spanning dementia and motor phenotypes in the FTD spectrum. We digitally measured the percent area occupied by tau and TDP-43 pathology in upper layers (I–III), lower layers (IV–VI), and juxtacortical white matter (WM) from isocortical regions in both hemispheres where available. Linear mixed-effects models compared ratios of upper to lower layer pathology between FTLD groups and investigated relationships with regions, WM pathology, and global cognitive impairment while adjusting for demographics. We found lower ratios of layer pathology in FTLD-tau and higher ratios of layer pathology in FTLD-TDP, reflecting lower layer-predominant tau pathology and upper layer-predominant TDP-43 pathology, respectively (
p
< 0.001). FTLD-tau displayed lower ratios of layer pathology related to greater WM tau pathology (
p
= 0.002) and to earlier involved/severe pathology regions (
p
= 0.007). In contrast, FTLD-TDP displayed higher ratios of layer pathology not related to either WM pathology or regional severity. Greater cognitive impairment was associated with higher ratios of layer pathology in FTLD-tau (
p
= 0.018), but was not related to ratios of layer pathology in FTLD-TDP. Lower layer-predominant tau pathology and upper layer-predominant TDP-43 pathology are proteinopathy-specific, regardless of clinical syndromes or regional networks that define these syndromes. Thus, patterns of laminar change may provide a useful anatomical framework for investigating how degeneration of select cells and corresponding laminar circuits influence large-scale networks and clinical symptomology in FTLD.
The majority (90%–95%) of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is sporadic, and ∼50% of patients develop symptoms of frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) associated with shorter survival. The genetic ...polymorphism rs12608932 in UNC13A confers increased risk of sporadic ALS and sporadic FTD and modifies survival in ALS. Here, we evaluate whether rs12608932 is also associated with frontotemporal disease in sporadic ALS. We identified reduced cortical thickness in sporadic ALS with T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (N = 109) relative to controls (N = 113), and observed that minor allele (C) carriers exhibited greater reduction of cortical thickness in the dorsal prefrontal, ventromedial prefrontal, anterior temporal, and middle temporal cortices and worse performance on a frontal lobe–mediated cognitive test (reverse digit span). In sporadic ALS with autopsy data (N = 102), minor allele homozygotes exhibited greater burden of phosphorylated tar DNA-binding protein-43 kda (TDP-43) pathology in the middle frontal, middle temporal, and motor cortices. Our findings demonstrate converging evidence that rs12608932 may modify frontotemporal disease in sporadic ALS and suggest that rs12608932 may function as a prognostic indicator and could be used to define patient endophenotypes in clinical trials.
Introduction
Category and letter fluency tasks are commonly used neuropsychological tasks to evaluate lexical retrieval.
Methods
This study used validated automated methods, which allow for more ...expansive investigation, to analyze speech production of both category (“Animal”) and letter (“F”) fluency tasks produced by healthy participants (
n
= 36) on an online platform. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed through automated pipelines, which utilized natural language processing and automatic acoustic processing tools. Automated pipelines calculated overall performance scores, mean inter-word response time, and word start time; errors were excluded from analysis. Each word was rated for age of acquisition (AoA), ambiguity, concreteness, frequency, familiarity, word length, word duration, and phonetic and semantic distance from its previous word.
Results
Participants produced significantly more words on the category fluency task relative to the letter fluency task (
p
< 0.001), which is in line with previous studies. Wilcoxon tests also showed tasks differed on several mean speech measures of words, and category fluency was associated with lower mean AoA (
p
<0.001), lower frequency (
p
< 0.001), lower semantic ambiguity (
p
< 0.001), lower semantic distance (
p
< 0.001), lower mean inter-word RT (
p
= 0.03), higher concreteness (
p
< 0.001), and higher familiarity (
p
= 0.02), compared to letter fluency. ANOVAs significant interactions for fluency task on total score and lexical measures showed that lower category fluency scores were significantly related to lower AoA and higher prevalence, and this was not observed for letter fluency scores. Finally, word-characteristics changed over time and significant interactions were noted between the tasks, including word familiarity (
p
= 0.019), semantic ambiguity (
p
= 0.002), semantic distance (
p
=0.001), and word duration (
p
<0.001).
Discussion
These findings showed that certain lexical measures such as AoA, word familiarity, and semantic ambiguity were important for understanding how these tasks differ. Additionally, it found that acoustic measures such as inter-word RT and word duration are also imperative to analyze when comparing the two tasks. By implementing these automated techniques, which are reproducible and scalable, to analyze fluency tasks we were able to quickly detect these differences. In future clinical settings, we expect these methods to expand our knowledge on speech feature differences that impact not only total scores, but many other speech measures among clinical populations.
The processing of quantifier words such as "many" or "few" is a complex operation supported by a plastic fronto-parietal network predominantly in the left hemisphere. The internal reference criterion ...defining a quantifier (e.g., ≥50% for "many") can be modified in a learning paradigm. Most interestingly, changing the criterion for one quantifier also leads to a change in the criterion for the untrained quantifier, i.e., a semantic restructuring effect, which is supported by Broca's region in the left inferior frontal cortex. Here, we applied this paradigm to patients with the behavioral variant of fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD) because they suffer from loss of cognitive flexibility, reduced ability to process quantities and their values, impaired reinforcement learning, and language comprehension deficits. The question was whether the patients would be able to perform the task, show direct learning of the new quantifier meanings, and exhibit cognitive flexibility in terms of semantic restructuring. Eleven bvFTD patients took part in two behavioral experiments. In Experiment 1, in a first baseline block, each individual's criterion for "many" and "few" was assessed. In block 2, subjects received feedback about their decisions. Contrary to their initial notion, a proportion of 40% yellow circles was reinforced as "many." In block 3, the effect of this training on their judgments of "many" and "few" was re-assessed. The group of bvFTD patients showed a learning effect for the new criterion trained for the quantifier "many," but failed to generalize this criterion shift to the other quantifier "few." Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1, but the patients were trained in Block 2 to judge 60% of circles as "few," with no training for "many." Again, there was an average learning effect for the trained quantifier "few" over the entire group, but no generalization to "many." Since the patients were still able to perform the task and showed learning of "many" to direct feedback, the data suggest that the generalization process, rather than initial learning, is more vulnerable to fronto-temporal degeneration.
Indirect speech acts-responding "I forgot to wear my watch today" to someone who asked for the time-are ubiquitous in daily conversation, but are understudied in current neurobiological models of ...language. To comprehend an indirect speech act like this one, listeners must not only decode the lexical-semantic content of the utterance, but also make a pragmatic, bridging inference. This inference allows listeners to derive the speaker's true, intended meaning-in the above dialog, for example, that the speaker cannot provide the time. In the present work, we address this major gap by asking non-aphasic patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD,
= 21) and brain-damaged controls with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI,
= 17) to judge simple question-answer dialogs of the form: "Do you want some cake for dessert?" "I'm on a very strict diet right now," and relate the results to structural and diffusion MRI. Accuracy and reaction time results demonstrate that subjects with bvFTD, but not MCI, are selectively impaired in indirect relative to direct speech act comprehension, due in part to their social and executive limitations, and performance is related to caregivers' judgment of communication efficacy. MRI imaging associates the observed impairment in bvFTD to cortical thinning not only in traditional language-associated regions, but also in fronto-parietal regions implicated in social and executive cerebral networks. Finally, diffusion tensor imaging analyses implicate white matter tracts in both dorsal and ventral projection streams, including superior longitudinal fasciculus, frontal aslant, and uncinate fasciculus. These results have strong implications for updated neurobiological models of language, and emphasize a core, language-mediated social disorder in patients with bvFTD.
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