Poster C19, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 10:45 am – 12:30 pm, Restaurant Hall
Oral narrative productions in Alzheimer’s Disease related to memory systems and brain volume measures
Lilian Cristine Hubner1,2, Alexandre Nikolaev3, Anderson Smidarle1, Gislaine M. Jerônimo1, Yawu Liu4, Lucas P. Schilling5,6, Fernanda Loureiro7, Alexandre R. Franco8,9, Ricardo B. Soder5,10, Ellen C. G. Siqueira1, Ariane Gonçalves1, Bárbara L. C. Malcorra1, Antônia A. Gazola10;1School of Humanities (Linguistics Department), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil, 2National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil, 3University of Helsinki, 4Departments of Neurology and Clinical Radiology, University of Eastern Finland, 5Brain Institute (InsCer), Brazil, 6São Lucas Hospital (PUCRS) (Neurology Service), 7São Lucas Hospital (PUCRS) (Speech and Language Service), 8Center for Biomedical Imaging and Neuromodulation, The Nathan S. Kline for Psychiatric Research, New York, 9Center for the Developing Brain, Child Mind Institute, New York, 10School of Medicine, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil
The performance in narrative production has been explored as a complementary tool in the diagnoses of cognitive decline and dementia, such as in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Narrative production, an important daily life ability, relies not only on linguistic aspects but also on other cognitive elements, such as memory systems. The aim of this research was to investigate the level of interdependence between oral production of two types of narratives (retelling a short story and narrating a story based on scenes) and two types of memory (working and episodic), associated to brain volume measures, in an AD group compared to a healthy aging group. Twelve healthy elderly controls (HC) (age mean=72.9, SD=5.6, range=63-82, schooling mean=5.4, SD=1.7, range=3-8) and thirteen AD participants (age mean=75.9, SD=4.8, range = 68-84; schooling mean=6, SD=2, range=3-8) participated in the study. They were asked to produce two short stories (to retell a narrative they heard and to tell a story based on a sequence of scenes), both followed by comprehension questions. The story orally produced were transcribed and analyzed based on their informative content and on micro (local) and macro (global) text structures. Two tasks were administered, the Digit Span (DS) to test working memory and a verbal learning task to assess episodic memory (EM). Voxel-based morphometry was used to obtain brain data. A mixed-effect analysis included five fixed-effect predictors (years of education, total EM score, total DS score, group type (HC x AD) and brain volume from different regions), as well as possible interactions between predictors. Data analyses showed a significant effect of the group type (b=3.1, t=3.6, p=0.002) and the EM task (b=0.13, t=3.7, p=0.001) in the oral narratives. Regarding brain volume analyses, group type (AD vs HC) was the predictor that interacted mostly with left hippocampus (b=-7.1, t=-2.1, p=0.049), total gray matter volume (b=-14, t=-2.4, p= 0.025), and gray matter subcortical volume (b=-13.4, t=-2.2, p=0.038). Working memory interacted with the 4th ventricle (b=-0.78, t=-2.4, p=0.025), left ventral diencephalon (b=-0.78, t=-2.4, p=0.025), while the posterior cingulate cortex (b=-5.59 t=-2.6, p=0.017) explained significantly narrative production. The results reflect the intrinsic articulation between memory systems, oral narrative production, and brain regions, factors to be considered in a comprehensive neurolinguistic analysis, especially when investigating clinical groups such as those with AD.
Themes: Disorders: Acquired, Language Production
Method: Other