Category: Parkinson's Disease: Cognitive functions
Objective: This study aims to characterize behavioral and neural correlates of semantic processing in Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Background: Cognitive studies on PD reveal abnormalities during semantic processing. However, most works focus on valid response counts, overlooking which specific conceptual features are primarily impacted and how they relate to the patients’ neurocognitive profiles. Our study aims to tackle such gaps.
Method: We recruited 20 persons with PD, 26 healthy controls, and 16 with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, as a disease control group). Participants were asked to name features of specific concepts (e.g., ’hot’ for the concept sun). Responses were analyzed in terms of ten objective word properties, including concreteness, imageability, and semantic variability. We performed group-level comparisons with ANCOVA and correlations between word properties and clinical features. Machine learning analyses were run for subject-level classification. Resting-state fMRI recordings were collected to evaluate correlations between brain connectivity patterns and the most discriminative word properties.
Results: PD patients, unlike those with bvFTD, tended to produce more concrete and imageable words than controls, both patterns being associated with overall cognitive functioning. Additionally, both PD and bvFTD patients displayed reduced semantic variability, a phenomenon that correlated with inhibitory deficits. Machine learning analyses of word properties revealed robust classification of individual PD patients, but not of bvFTD patients. Discriminatory features were correlated with disease-specific connectivity alterations along the sensorimotor and salience networks.
Conclusion: These findings underscore the potential of detailed semantic assessments to uncover distinct neurocognitive characteristics specific to PD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
F. Toro-Hernández, J. Migeot, N. Marchant, D. Olivares, F. Ferrante, R. González-Gómez, C. González Campo, S. Fittipaldi, G. Rojas-Costa, S. Moguilner, A. Slachevsky, P. Chaná Cuevas, A. Ibáñez, S. Chaigneau, A. García. Semantic Memory in Parkinson’s Disease: Linguistic Features and Neural Correlates [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2024; 39 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/semantic-memory-in-parkinsons-disease-linguistic-features-and-neural-correlates/. Accessed May 21, 2025.« Back to 2024 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/semantic-memory-in-parkinsons-disease-linguistic-features-and-neural-correlates/