We hypothesise that basal ganglia are involved in sentence processing whenever a sentence structure deviates from the predicted structure and this in order to inhibit the irrelevant structure and to switch to a revision process.
ID
Bron
Verkorte titel
Aandoening
To test our hypothesis we developed six conditions by crossing two within subject factors in a 2x2x3 factorial design. The first factor is word order with two levels: active and passive. The second factor is grammaticality with three levels: no violation, an inflectional morphology violation, and a transitivity violation condition. On the basis of these six conditions we created a set of materials that will be used in two different experiments. We will first conduct an event related fMRI-experiment and analyze the brain activations during a semantic relatedness task. After this scanning procedure we will also conduct an off-line behavioral experiment to collect accuracy and latency data on the grammaticality judgments.
Ondersteuning
Hoofdweg 667A
2131 BB Hoofddorp
Onderzoeksproduct en/of interventie
Uitkomstmaten
Primaire uitkomstmaten
For the fMRI analysis data, a main effect of group is expected. The level of activation in the BG will be reduced in the PD patient group compared to the healthy control group. For the within subject factors we expect to find a main effect of grammaticality. In the healthy elderly subject group, we expect that the processing of the grammatical incorrect sentences will activate the BG more compared to the processing of the grammatical correct sentences. For the behaviourally data, we expect to find slower reaction times (RTs) for the processing of non-canonical ungrammatical sentences (i.e. passive sentences with a violation) in both subject groups. However the RTs will be significantly more affected in the PD group compared to the healthy elderly subject group.
Achtergrond van het onderzoek
Linguistic research has revealed that some Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients demonstrate difficulties with the comprehension of syntactically complex or rather long sentences. However, it remains unclear whether cognitive limitations such as working memory (WM), attention, and information processing speed (IPS) account for the comprehension difficulties of PD (e.g. Grossman et al., 1992; Grossman et al., 2000; Grossman et al., 2002; Lee et al., 2003); or whether the impaired sentence comprehension is due to a specific grammatical processing deficit (Lieberman et al., 1992; Natsopoulos et al., 1993; Natsopoulos et al., 1991). Up until today, relatively little is known about the involvement of the BG and/or fronto-striatal system in sentence comprehension. PD is one of the disorders of the basal ganglia. In order to evidence the involvement and the function of the BG in linguistic processes, we can study this group of patients while performing language tasks. We hypothesise that whenever the structure of a sentence deviates from the predicted syntactic structure (because of for example and error), the BG are involved in order to inhibit the irrelevant structure and to switch to a revision process.
Objective:
The primary goal of this study is to understand the sentence comprehension difficulties in Dutch speaking PD patients. Secondly, we developed the two experiments to test the hypothesis that the BG are involved and play a particular role in syntactic processing.
Doel van het onderzoek
We hypothesise that basal ganglia are involved in sentence processing whenever a sentence structure deviates from the predicted structure and this in order to inhibit the irrelevant structure and to switch to a revision process.
Onderzoeksopzet
N/A
Onderzoeksproduct en/of interventie
No interventions. It is observational research with the use of FMRI (no use of invasive techniques).
Publiek
K. Colman
Groningen 9712 EK
The Netherlands
+31(0)50 363 81 35
k.s.f.colman@rug.nl
Wetenschappelijk
K. Colman
Groningen 9712 EK
The Netherlands
+31(0)50 363 81 35
k.s.f.colman@rug.nl
Belangrijkste voorwaarden om deel te mogen nemen (Inclusiecriteria)
1. Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (PD)
2. Hoehn and Yahr Stage 1 to Stage 3
3. Normal vision and hearing
4. Able to give informed consent
5. Older than 40 years
6. Dutch as first language
7. Right-handed
8. Normal structural MRI scan
Belangrijkste redenen om niet deel te kunnen nemen (Exclusiecriteria)
1. Not optimally medicated
2. Neurostimulator
3. Implanted pump (e.g. apomorphine)
4. Dementia (MMSE-score < 25)
5. Depression (MADRS > 18)
6. Another neurological disease
7. Another akinetic-rigid disorder
8. Another movement disorder
9. No normal structural MRI scan
Opzet
Deelname
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In overige registers
| Register | ID |
|---|---|
| NTR-new | NL771 |
| NTR-old | NTR782 |
| Ander register | : N/A |
| ISRCTN | ISRCTN18548326 |