White matter correlations of sentence processing in individuals with post-stroke aphasia
Poster No:
1012
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Sabrina Beber1,2, Ahmad Beyh3, Chris Foulon4, Piergiorgio Tomasi5, Stefano Terruzzi6, Jacopo Bonavita5, Marco Tettamanti7, Gabriele Miceli6, Stephanie Forkel8
Institutions:
1Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), Rovereto, Trento, Italy, 2Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands, 3Donders Institute – Radboud University, Nijmegen, Nijmegen, 4Groupe d'Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle (GIN), Institut des Maladies Neurodegeneratives-UMR 5293, CNRS, Bordeaux, France, 5Villa Rosa Rehabilitation Department, Azienda Provinciale Servizi Sanitari, Pergine Valsugana, Trento, Italy, 6Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) – University of Trento, Rovereto, Trento, Italy, 7University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Milano, 8Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Gelderland
First Author:
Sabrina Beber
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC)|Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University
Rovereto, Trento, Italy|Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC)|Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University
Rovereto, Trento, Italy|Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands
Co-Author(s):
Chris Foulon
Groupe d'Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle (GIN), Institut des Maladies Neurodegeneratives-UMR 5293, CNRS
Bordeaux, France
Groupe d'Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle (GIN), Institut des Maladies Neurodegeneratives-UMR 5293, CNRS
Bordeaux, France
Piergiorgio Tomasi
Villa Rosa Rehabilitation Department, Azienda Provinciale Servizi Sanitari
Pergine Valsugana, Trento, Italy
Villa Rosa Rehabilitation Department, Azienda Provinciale Servizi Sanitari
Pergine Valsugana, Trento, Italy
Stefano Terruzzi
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) – University of Trento
Rovereto, Trento, Italy
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) – University of Trento
Rovereto, Trento, Italy
Jacopo Bonavita
Villa Rosa Rehabilitation Department, Azienda Provinciale Servizi Sanitari
Pergine Valsugana, Trento, Italy
Villa Rosa Rehabilitation Department, Azienda Provinciale Servizi Sanitari
Pergine Valsugana, Trento, Italy
Gabriele Miceli
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) – University of Trento
Rovereto, Trento, Italy
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) – University of Trento
Rovereto, Trento, Italy
Stephanie Forkel
Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University
Nijmegen, Gelderland
Donders Institute for Brain Cognition Behaviour, Radboud University
Nijmegen, Gelderland
Introduction:
This research builds on lesion-symptom mapping analyses involving patients with aphasia (PWA) who exhibit comprehension deficits in reversible sentences due to temporo-parietal damage. Previous studies (e.g., Thothathiri et al., 2012) have predominantly focused on cortical analyses and thematic role reversal errors in sentence comprehension (e.g., understand 'that a boy is kissing a girl' hearing 'The boy is kissed by the girl'). However, we recognise the importance of investigating the impact of white matter lesions and morphosyntactic processes on sentence comprehension. Our study aims to explore whether the cortical neurofunctional correlates of sentence comprehension extend to the white matter, particularly in the context of thematic role assignment errors, while controlling for morphosyntactic difficulties.
Methods:
21 individuals with aphasia following left hemisphere stroke (13 males; age: 18-80 years; >6 years of education; Italian mother tongue; right-handed) and 50 matched healthy controls (28 males) participated in a sentence-picture matching task including thematic role and morphosyntactic foils. Structural and diffusion 3T-MRI (dir=64, b-value=2000, number of B0=12) data were acquired using a PRISMA scanner and underwent preprocessing. Lesions were manually delineated and normalised to the MNI152-1mm space using ANTs (http://stnava.github.io/ANTs/). The lesion-based probability of tract disconnections was assessed using Tractotron (Foulon et al., 2018) and statistically analysed alongside sentence performance using a Kruskal-Wallis test, with Mann-Whitney post-hoc analysis with Benjamini-Hochberg correction. Personalised tractography dissections were based on spherical deconvolution modelling (Dell'Acqua et al., 2010; 2013) and visualised using TrackVis (https://trackvis.org) based on manually defined regions of interest (Forkel et al., 2023). The volume (measured as voxels intersected by a streamline) of each dissected tract was subjected to partial correlation analysis with Bootstrapping, Bonferroni corrected, and associated with sentence performance.
Results:
All PWA exhibited difficulties in sentence comprehension, as determined by the cut-off score from healthy controls. The probability of damage to the anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus correlated with thematic role foils difficulties (p<.05, Benjamini-Hochberg corrected). No significant correlations were identified in the posterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus, frontal aslant tract, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus and cortical-spinal tract. The long segment of the arcuate and the corpus callosum were disconnected in all PWA and, while visualised, were not included in the analysis (Figure 1-Chart).
The personalised tractography analysis revealed that the volume of all segments of the arcuate fasciculus was associated with reduced accuracy on thematic role foils (p<.005, Bonferroni corrected). When covarying for morphosyntactic foils, both the long and posterior segments exhibited correlations (p<.005, Bonferroni corrected) with diminished accuracy on thematic role foils. In contrast, no significant correlations were observed in the corpus callosum and corticospinal tract, which served as non-linguistic control tracts (Figure 1-Dissections).
The personalised tractography analysis revealed that the volume of all segments of the arcuate fasciculus was associated with reduced accuracy on thematic role foils (p<.005, Bonferroni corrected). When covarying for morphosyntactic foils, both the long and posterior segments exhibited correlations (p<.005, Bonferroni corrected) with diminished accuracy on thematic role foils. In contrast, no significant correlations were observed in the corpus callosum and corticospinal tract, which served as non-linguistic control tracts (Figure 1-Dissections).
Conclusions:
The study of thematic role assignment difficulties revealed significant involvement of the arcuate fasciculus, complementing previous cortical-focused research. In the lesion-based probability analysis, a correlation was observed between damage to the anterior segment and thematic role assignment. In the tractography-based analysis, when controlled for performance on morphosyntactic foils, the long and posterior segments were significantly associated with thematic role assignment, aligning with previous lesion studies implicating temporo-parietal regions. Our findings highlight the crucial role of a fronto-temporo-parietal white matter network in sentence processing.
Language:
Language Comprehension and Semantics 1
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
Diffusion MRI 2
Keywords:
ADULTS
Aphasia
Language
MRI
Neurological
White Matter
Other - Cerebrovascular Disease
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Avants, B.B. (2014), 'The Insight ToolKit image registration framework', Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 8.
Forkel, S.J. 'Dissecting White Matter Pathways: A neuroanatomical approach. In Handbook of Diffusion MRI Tractography (Eds Leemands/ Dell'Acqua)', preprint.
Foulon, C. (2018), ‘Advanced lesion symptom mapping analyses and implementation as BCBtoolkit’, Gigascience, 7(3), giy004.
Thothathiri, M. (2012), 'The neural basis of reversible sentence comprehension: evidence from voxel-based lesion symptom mapping in aphasia', Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(1), 212-222.