Objective: To explore the correlation between linguistic prosody and cognition in Parkinson’s disease

Background: Around 90% of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) report speech deficit. Prosody (i.e. melody of the language) is early affected in PD and assessed by studying the fundamental frequency (f0). We hypothesize that linguistic prosody is correlated with cognitive process, and could be a valuable biomarker for cognitive impairment in PD.

Method: We compared the correlation between f0 declination and maximum phonation time (MPT) to global cognitive performance (MoCA) and pulmonary testing in PD patients.
Patients were investigated in ON drug condition: MDS UPDRS part 3, MoCA, Pulmonary functional testing, including maximal expiratory mouth pressure (MEP), maximal inspiratory mouth pressure (MIP), the sniff nasal inspiratory pressure (SNIP).
F0 declination was calculated using the recordings of 4 declarative sentences read in French. For each sentence, the mean f0 of the first and the last vowel was measured using semitones. The slope of the straight line connecting the first and the last vowel has been calculated and averaged across sentences for each patient. 
Maximum phonation time (MPT) was measured on two sustained /a/ produced by each patient. All acoustic analyses were done using Praat.Multiple regression analyses were performed on f0 declination and MPT to test whether cognitive performance (MoCA score) and respiratory muscle strength (MEP, MIP, SNIP values) significantly predicted f0 declination and MPT.

Results: Fifteen parkinsonian patients (3 females; mean age ± SD: 65.1 ± 6.6 years; disease duration: 7.5 ± 2.1 years; UPDRS III: 17.9 ± 8) participated in this study.
We demonstrated a mean negative slope for f0 declination: -1.56, 95% CI = [-1.97 -1.16]. Results of the analysis on f0declination showed significant effects of MoCA, MEP and SNIP.
As expected no correlations were found between MPT and MoCA.

Conclusion: We believe that f0 declination would be an interesting acoustic parameter to examine during the progression of disease.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/exploring-cognitive-aspect-of-linguistic-prosody-in-parkinsons-disease/