Concreteness effect in a Semantic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia patient: semantic processing and neuroanatomic areas

BOROVINSKY, G.; TORRALVA, T; PONTELLO, NOELIA; MACARENA MARTÍNEZ CUITIÑO; FERRARI, J; MANES, F.

Munich

Conferencia; 10th International Conference on Frontotemporal dementias; 2016

Semantic variant Primary Progressive Aphasia (sv-PPA) is characterized by a progressive  impairment of conceptual knowledge. In sv-PPA, as well as in control subjects, there is a concreteness effect (more severe impairment in abstract words). However, some research has shown a reversal of this standard effect in these patients. Neuroanatomic studies with fMRI and PET showed the different areas that process concrete and abstract concepts in control subjects. Abstract concepts elicited greater activity in the  left inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle temporal gyrus compared to concrete concepts. Concrete concepts activated the left posterior cingulate, precuneus, fusiform gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus. The aim of this study was to evaluate abstract and concrete concepts in a patient with sv-PPA and correlate the results with the neuroimaging in a visual-cualitative way. For this purpose we asked the patient to perform a synonym judgment task (SJT) including nouns and verbs manipulating imageability (concrete and abstract words). We assessed a right handed 76-year-old woman, with 7 years of education and two years and a half of disease evolution. The brain MRI showed a bilateral temporal polar atrophy (with atrophy of the temporal middle gyrus). The atrophy increased compared to the prior MRI from three years before. Regarding the performance of the SJT, we performed an analysis using chi squared test to identify the differences between concretes and abstracts concepts. The results showed a significant concrete effect (X2(1)=5.192;p