Language Uncovers Visuospatial Dysfunction in Posterior Cortical Atrophy: A Natural Language Processing Approach.
Language Uncovers Visuospatial Dysfunction in Posterior Cortical Atrophy: A Natural Language Processing Approach.
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语言揭示后皮质萎缩中的视觉空间功能障碍：一种自然语言处理方法。
DOI：
10.1101/2023.11.21.23298864
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发表时间：
2023
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Putcha,Deepti
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rezaii,Neguine;Hochberg,Daisy;Quimby,Megan;Wong,Bonnie;McGinnis,Scott;Dickerson,BradfordC;Putcha,Deepti
简介后皮质萎缩（PCA）是一种以高阶视觉空间处理进行性衰退为特征的综合征，导致空间知觉缺陷、同时失认和物体知觉障碍等症状。虽然 PCA 主要因其对视觉空间能力的影响而闻名，但最近的研究记录了 PCA 患者的语言异常。本研究旨在描述 PCA 语言障碍的性质和起源，假设语言缺陷反映了该疾病的视觉空间处理障碍。方法我们将 25 名 PCA 患者与年龄匹配的认知正常 (CN) 个体的语言样本进行了比较，涉及两个不同的任务：视觉依赖的图片描述和视觉独立的工作描述任务。我们提取了词频、词发音延迟和空间关系词进行比较。然后，我们对图片描述任务中使用的语言进行了深入分析，以确定反映 PCA 视觉空间处理缺陷的具体语言指标。结果 PCA 患者在视觉依赖任务中表现出明显的语言缺陷，其特征是词频较高、言语延迟延长和空间关系词较少，但在视觉独立任务中则不然。对图片描述任务的深入分析进一步表明，PCA 患者很难识别某些视觉元素以及图片的整体主题。基于这些语言特征的预测模型以高分类准确度区分 PCA 患者和 CN 个体。讨论研究结果表明语言是检测 PCA 视觉空间处理异常的敏感行为结构。这些见解为理解和管理 PCA 提供了理论和临床途径，强调语言是这种非典型阿尔茨海默病变体视觉空间缺陷的关键标志。
IntroductionPosterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) is a syndrome characterized by a progressive decline in higher-order visuospatial processing, leading to symptoms such as space perception deficit, simultanagnosia, and object perception impairment. While PCA is primarily known for its impact on visuospatial abilities, recent studies have documented language abnormalities in PCA patients. This study aims to delineate the nature and origin of language impairments in PCA, hypothesizing that language deficits reflect the visuospatial processing impairments of the disease.MethodsWe compared the language samples of 25 patients with PCA with age-matched cognitively normal (CN) individuals across two distinct tasks: a visually-dependent picture description and a visually-independent job description task. We extracted word frequency, word utterance latency, and spatial relational words for this comparison. We then conducted an in-depth analysis of the language used in the picture description task to identify specific linguistic indicators that reflect the visuospatial processing deficits of PCA.ResultsPatients with PCA showed significant language deficits in the visually-dependent task, characterized by higher word frequency, prolonged utterance latency, and fewer spatial relational words, but not in the visually-independent task. An in-depth analysis of the picture description task further showed that PCA patients struggled to identify certain visual elements as well as the overall theme of the picture. A predictive model based on these language features distinguished PCA patients from CN individuals with high classification accuracy.DiscussionThe findings indicate that language is a sensitive behavioral construct to detect visuospatial processing abnormalities of PCA. These insights offer theoretical and clinical avenues for understanding and managing PCA, underscoring language as a crucial marker for the visuospatial deficits of this atypical variant of Alzheimer’s disease.