Chinese Language Assessment in Primary Progressive Aphasia

项目摘要 原发性进行性失语（PPA）是一种以孤立性进行性言语丧失为特征的临床综合征 和语言功能，因为语言网络的选择性退化。几乎所有过去的PPA研究都 尽管估计有12亿以中文为母语的人， 在美国有350万讲中文的人。考虑到 在白种人和华裔美国人中，可能有超过一百万的中国PPA 世界各地的个人。其中大多数仍然无法识别或误诊，主要是由于缺乏 缺乏适当的评估工具和认识。主要评估说中文的PPA个人 通过演讲和语言工具逐字翻译的英语。这是不够的，因为它没有 英汉两种语言之间存在着深刻的语言学差异。通过共同努力， 来自美国、台湾和香港的研究人员、临床医生和语言病理学家， 为PPA开发了一套基于神经解剖学和语言学的中文语言评估组合 （鼓掌）。CLAP电池的可行性已经通过美国阿尔茨海默氏症基金资助的一个试点项目得到了证明。 协会和全球脑健康研究所。 本项目的总体目标是提高汉语的临床诊断和分类， PPA患者。该项目包括两个具体目标。第一个目标是验证神经解剖学 CLAP组合中单个测试的特异性。通过这一努力，我们将获得深入的解剖学 了解汉语人群中的各种神经语言学成分。第二个目标是 旨在探讨我国PPA患者的临床和语言学特征 队列。入组的讲中文的PPA个体将被聚类为不同的基于成像的表型 根据他们主要的萎缩区域将比较MRI体积表型， 说中文和英语的队列验证PPA神经成像特征。临床和 将研究每种基于成像的表型的语言学特征，以识别重要的关键特征， 有助于对讲中文的PPA人群进行诊断和分类。 该项目将为汉语使用者的语言神经基础提供新的机制见解， 为说中文的PPA人口建立特定的言语和语言评估工具， 长期目标是改善对这一服务不足人群的诊断和护理。它还促进了语言学 神经退行性疾病研究领域的多样性。

PROJECT SUMMARY Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a clinical syndrome characterized by isolated progressive loss speech and language functions due to selective degeneration of language networks. Nearly all past PPA research has focused on English language speakers, even though there are an estimated 1.2 billion native Chinese speakers worldwide and 3.5 million Chinese speakers in the United States. Considering the comparable prevalence of PPA in the Caucasians and Chinese-American population, there might be more than a million Chinese PPA individuals worldwide. The majority of them remain unidentified or misdiagnosed, largely due to the lack of appropriate assessment tools and lack of awareness. Chinese-speaking PPA individuals are mainly assessed by speech and language tools translated verbatim from the English language. This is inadequate as it does not account for the profound linguistics differences between English and Chinese language. Through the joint effort of researchers, clinicians, and speech-language pathologists from the US, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, we developed a neuroanatomically-based and linguistically-adapted Chinese language assessment battery for PPA (CLAP). The CLAP battery's feasibility has been demonstrated through a pilot project funded by U.S. Alzheimer's Association and Global Brain Health Institute. The overarching goal of this project is to improve the clinical diagnosis and classification of Chinese-speaking PPA patients. This project consists of two specific aims. The first aim focuses on validating the neuroanatomical specificity of the individual tests in the CLAP battery. Through this effort, we will acquire in-depth anatomical knowledge of various neurolinguistics components in the Chinese speaking population. The second aim is designed to investigate the clinical and linguistics features of imaging-based phenotypes in our Chinese PPA cohort. Enrolled Chinese-speaking PPA individuals will be clustered into different imaging-based phenotypes based on their predominant atrophy areas. The MRI volumetric phenotypes will be compared between the Chinese-speaking and English-speaking cohorts to validate the PPA neuroimaging signatures. The clinical and linguistics features of each imaging based phenotype will be studied to identify significant key features that facilitate the diagnosis and classification of the Chinese-speaking PPA population. This project will provide novel mechanistic insights to the neural basis of language in Chinese speakers and establish specific speech and language assessment tools for the Chinese-speaking PPA population with the long-term goal of improving diagnosis and care for this underserved population. It also promotes linguistics diversity in the field of neurodegenerative disease research.