Anomia is a common consequence following brain damage and a central symptom in semantic dementia (SD) and post-stroke aphasia (PSA), for instance. Picture naming tests are often used in clinical assessments and experience suggests that items vary systematically in their difficulty. Despite clinical intuitions and theoretical accounts, however, the existence and determinants of such a naming difficulty gradient remain to be empirically established and evaluated. Seizing the unique opportunity of two large-scale datasets of semantic dementia and post-stroke aphasia patients assessed with the same picture naming test, we applied an Item Response Theory (IRT) approach and we (a) established that an item naming difficulty gradient exists, which (b) partly differs between patient groups, and is (c) related in part to a limited number of psycholinguistic properties - frequency and familiarity for SD, frequency and word length for PSA. Our findings offer exciting future avenues for new, adaptive, time-efficient, and patient-tailored approaches to naming assessment and therapy.

Van den Hoven et al. contested my interpretation of Wernicke regarding the role of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) in word production. Here, I clarify and defend my interpretation. They also questioned the assumption of AF subtracts in my modern account, stating that subtracts are difficult to distinguish anatomically due to overlapping terminations. Here, I make clear that overlap in terminations was actually part of my account, in which differentially damaged subtracts explained patients\' differential naming and repetition performance as well as types of repetition performance.

UNASSIGNED: All common variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) exhibit naming deficits. Variants are distinguished by relative deficits in repetition (logopenic; lvPPA), object knowledge (semantic; svPPA), and agrammatism or articulation (non-fluent/agrammatic; nfavPPA; Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011). The Hopkins Action Naming Assessment (HANA) is a 30-item verb naming task that can distinguish between variants (Stockbridge et al., 2021). Item-level accuracy is driven by target verb frequency, semantic information density, and conceptual concreteness of the target word (Stockbridge, Venezia, et al., 2022).
UNASSIGNED: In this investigation, we examined whether word frequency, semantic density, concreteness, and age of acquisition (AoA) also shaped the incorrect responses patients provided. We hypothesised that error responses would vary in these dimensions as a function of PPA variant.
UNASSIGNED: The HANA was administered to 271 participants with PPA, resulting in 443 total administrations and 4,529 analysable error responses. Standardised differences between error and target responses for frequency, density, concreteness, and AoA were calculated and averaged for each patient. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for correlated samples was used to compare variants and planned post-hoc analyses examined the effect of variant on each response quality.
UNASSIGNED: Participants were similar in age, sex, handedness, and education. There was a significant interaction between PPA variant and the standardised mean differences in lexical qualities (Pillai\'s Trace=0.11, F(9, 747)=3.19, p<0.001). Univariate ANOVAs revealed significant differences in the semantic density of error responses relative to the target (F(3)=7.91, p<0.001, ηP 2=0.09), as individuals with lvPPA tended to produce error responses with greater semantic density than the target when compared to the words produced by individuals with nfavPPA (mean difference=1.45, 95%CI=[0.60,2.29], p<0.001; Figure 1). PPA variants also differed in the concreteness of their error responses relative to the target (F(3)=5.99, p<0.001, ηP 2=0.07), as error responses produced by individuals with nfavPPA were significantly more concrete than those with lvPPA (mean difference=0.08, 95%CI=[0.02,0.13], p=0.003) or svPPA (mean difference=0.08, 95%CI=[0.02,0.14], p=0.007). Variants did not differ significantly in AoA or frequency of responses relative to their targets. All variants tended to produce more frequent words with a lower AoA than the target verb.
UNASSIGNED: Error responses tended to be more semantically dense, more concrete, higher frequency, and younger AoA than the target verb. However, PPA variants differed significantly in the extent to which these broader trends held true. These distinct patterns may be included as part of a larger diagnostic picture that to distinguish among PPA variants.

The exploration of naming error patterns in aphasia provides insights into the cognitive processes underlying naming performance. We investigated how semantic and phonological abilities correlate and how they influence naming performance in aphasia. Data from 296 individuals with aphasia, drawn from the Moss Aphasia Psycholinguistics Project Database, were analyzed using a structural equation model. The model incorporated latent variables for semantics and phonology and manifest variables for naming accuracy and error patterns. There was a moderate positive correlation between semantics and phonology after controlling for overall aphasia severity. Both semantic and phonological abilities influenced naming accuracy. Semantic abilities negatively related to semantic, mixed, unrelated errors, and no responses. Interestingly, phonology positively affected semantic errors. Additionally, phonological abilities negatively related to each of phonological and neologism errors. These results highlight the role of semantic and phonological skills on naming performance in aphasia and reveal a relationship between these cognitive processes.

BACKGROUND: Few investigations examined the relationship between microstructural white matter integrity and subacute post-stroke linguistic performance or the relationship between microstructural integrity and the recovery of language function. We examined two key questions: (1) How does subacute language performance, measured in single words and discourse, relate to the microstructural integrity of key white matter regions of interest in the language network? and (2) Does the integrity of these regions before treatment predict the improvement or resolution of linguistic symptoms immediately and chronically following treatment?
METHODS: 58 participants within the first three months of stroke were enrolled in a randomized, single-center, double-blind, sham-controlled, study of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation combined with a computer-delivered speech and language naming therapy for subacute aphasia and were asked to complete magnetic resonance imaging at enrollment. Microstructural integrity was evaluated using diffusion tensor imaging processed with atlas-based segmentation. Regression and correlation analyses were conducted.
RESULTS: A subset of 22 participants received diffusion tensor imaging. Picture naming accuracy significantly correlated with lower mean diffusivity (higher microstructural integrity) in the left posterior inferior temporal gyrus. Recovery of naming performance was predicted by days since stroke and baseline microstructural integrity of the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, arcuate fasciculus, and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Recovery of discourse efficiency was significantly predicted by the same model.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between picture naming and discourse and microstructural integrity of the key regions in the language network for patients with subacute post-stroke aphasia. Baseline microstructural integrity significantly predicts language recovery.

Several studies have reported subtle differences in cognition between individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) compared to those with normal cognition. This study aimed to (i) identify these differences using discrepancy scores (e.g., categorial-phonemic verbal fluency performance) derived from neuropsychological tests in three cognitive domains (memory: Wechsler\'s Word List and Digits; executive functions: Stroop and verbal fluency; and language: BNT and ECCO_Senior) and (ii) determine which discrepancy scores are significant for classification. Seventy-five older adults were included: 32 who were labeled SCD+ (age 71.50 ± 5.29), meeting Jessen et al.\'s criteria, and 43 in the normal cognition group (SCD-; age 69.81 ± 4.62). Both groups completed a protocol including screening and the specified neuropsychological tests. No differences were found between the groups in their age, education, episodic memory, global cognitive state, or mood. Significant differences between the groups were observed regarding the discrepancy scores derived from BNT (naming) and ECCO_Senior (sentence comprehension). These scores accurately classified participants (71.6%), with ECCO_Senior having a primary role. ROC curves indicated a poor-to-fair model quality or diagnostic accuracy (AUC_BNT = 0.690; AUC_ECCO = 0.722). In conclusion, discrepancy scores in the language domain are important for distinguishing between individuals with SCD and normal cognition, complementing previous findings in this domain. However, given their relatively poor diagnostic accuracy, they should be used with caution as part of a more detailed neuro-psychological assessment.

UNASSIGNED: Non-invasive brain stimulation has been widely used as an adjunctive treatment for aphasia following stroke.
UNASSIGNED: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of non-invasive brain stimulation as an adjunctive treatment on naming function in aphasia following stroke.
UNASSIGNED: This review included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 5 databases (Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, OVID and PubMed) that investigated the effects of electrical stimulation on stroke patients. The search included literature published up to November 2023.
UNASSIGNED: We identified 18 studies, and the standardized mean differences (SMDs) showed that the effect sizes of TMS and tDCS were small to medium. Moreover, the treatment effects persisted over time, indicating long-term efficacy.
UNASSIGNED: This study suggested that NIBS combined with speech and language therapy can effectively promote the recovery of naming function in patients with post-stroke aphasia (PSA) and that the effects are long lasting.

暂无摘要。

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) may serve as an early indicator of Alzheimer\'s disease (AD). However, accurately quantifying cognitive impairment in SCD is challenging, mainly because existing assessment tools lack sensitivity. This study examined how tasks specifically designed to assess knowledge of famous people, could potentially aid in identifying cognitive impairment in SCD. A total of 60 adults with SCD and 60 healthy controls (HCs) aged 50 to 82 years performed a famous people verbal fluency task and a famous people naming task. In the famous people fluency task, the results showed that the individuals with SCD produced significantly fewer famous names in the total time allowed than the HCs, and this difference was also found in the first and the second time interval. In the famous people naming task, the performance of the SCD group was significantly lower than that of the HC group only in the more recent period of fame. Overall, these results suggest that retrieving the names of famous people was more difficult for people with SCD than for people without cognitive complaints. They also suggest that famous people verbal fluency and naming tasks could be useful in detecting cognitive decline at the preclinical stage of AD.

»La crise sanitaire« (›the health crisis‹) that began in 2020 has had an impact on all levels of society, notably in the linguistic realm, where it has generated an abundance of discourse and lexical creations. The present article is based on a corpus from French print news corpus drawn from the databases Factiva and Europresse. The concept of »crisis«, a core notion in the underlying reflection, has brought in its wake many linguistic issues, including the gender of »covid-19«, the various different names for the so-called crisis (»pandemic«, »health crisis«, etc.), and the competition between »social distancing« and »physical distancing«. To begin, I use some of the many concepts available in the domain of discourse analysis to analyze the event itself and the naming process, and I make some proposals in the framework of discursive semantics. Next, I tackle the issue of lexical creativity while distinguishing two linguistic spheres, that of institutional discourse and that of the discourse of ordinary people. I study some of these neologisms by noting their spread throughout the current discourse and their inclusion in common French dictionaries. Lastly, I pave the way toward a contrastive discourse analysis that takes languages and cultures into account.
»La crise sanitaire« (›die Gesundheitskrise‹), die im Jahr 2020 begann, hat sich auf alle Ebenen der Gesellschaft ausgewirkt, vor allem im sprachlichen Bereich, wo sie eine Fülle von Diskursen und Wortschöpfungen hervorgebracht hat. Dieser Artikel basiert auf einem französischen Zeitungskorpus, das aus den Datenbanken Factiva und Europresse stammt. Das Konzept der »Krise«, ein Kernbegriff der vorliegenden Überlegungen, hat viele sprachliche Probleme ins Blickfeld gebracht, darunter die Frage nach dem grammatischen Geschlecht von »covid-19«, die verschiedenen Bezeichnungen für die Krise (»Pandemie«, »Gesundheitskrise« usw.) und die Konkurrenz zwischen »sozialer Distanzierung« und »physischer Distanzierung«. Zu Beginn verwende ich einige der zahlreichen Konzepte, die im Bereich der Diskursanalyse verfügbar sind, um das Ereignis selbst und den Nominationsprozess zu analysieren, und ich mache einige Vorschläge im Rahmen der Diskurssemantik. Als nächstes befasse ich mich mit der Frage der lexikalischen Kreativität, wobei zwei sprachliche Sphären unterschieden werden, die des institutionellen Diskurses und die des Alltagsdiskurses. Ich untersuche einige der Neologismen anhand ihrer Verbreitung im aktuellen Diskurs und ihrer Aufnahme in gängige französische Wörterbücher. Schließlich erweitere ich die Überlegungen in Richtung einer kontrastiven Diskursanalyse, die Sprachen und Kulturen mit einbezieht.