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Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia.

Fletcher, PD; Downey, LE; Agustus, JL; Hailstone, JC; Tyndall, MH; Cifelli, A; Schott, JM; ... Warren, JD; + view all (2013) Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia. Neuropsychologia , 51 (9) pp. 1709-1715. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.05.013. Green open access

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Abstract

As an example of complex auditory signal processing, the analysis of accented speech is potentially vulnerable in the progressive aphasias. However, the brain basis of accent processing and the effects of neurodegenerative disease on this processing are not well understood. Here we undertook a detailed neuropsychological study of a patient, AA with progressive nonfluent aphasia, in whom agnosia for accents was a prominent clinical feature. We designed a battery to assess AA's ability to process accents in relation to other complex auditory signals. AA's performance was compared with a cohort of 12 healthy age and gender matched control participants and with a second patient, PA, who had semantic dementia with phonagnosia and prosopagnosia but no reported difficulties with accent processing. Relative to healthy controls, the patients showed distinct profiles of accent agnosia. AA showed markedly impaired ability to distinguish change in an individual's accent despite being able to discriminate phonemes and voices (apperceptive accent agnosia); and in addition, a severe deficit of accent identification. In contrast, PA was able to perceive changes in accents, phonemes and voices normally, but showed a relatively mild deficit of accent identification (associative accent agnosia). Both patients showed deficits of voice and environmental sound identification, however PA showed an additional deficit of face identification whereas AA was able to identify (though not name) faces normally. These profiles suggest that AA has conjoint (or interacting) deficits involving both apperceptive and semantic processing of accents, while PA has a primary semantic (associative) deficit affecting accents along with other kinds of auditory objects and extending beyond the auditory modality. Brain MRI revealed left peri-Sylvian atrophy in case AA and relatively focal asymmetric (predominantly right sided) temporal lobe atrophy in case PA. These cases provide further evidence for the fractionation of brain mechanisms for complex sound analysis, and for the stratification of progressive aphasia syndromes according to the signature of nonverbal auditory deficits they produce.

Type: Article
Title: Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia.
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.05.013
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013....
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY NC ND), which permits distribution. You may not use this work for commercial purposes or alter, transform, or build upon this work. The original author and source must be credited.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > IoN Central Administration
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neurodegenerative Diseases
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1395065
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