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Investigating the impact of aphasia on language comprehension and simple arithmetic
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Poster D44 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Erin Duricy1, Corrine Durisko1, Julie Fiez1; 1University of Pittsburgh
The nature of the relationship between language and basic mathematical ability is unclear. Prior research finds mixed evidence of whether common neural mechanisms underlie language and arithmetic processing. In individuals who suffer a stroke, language impairments (aphasia) and mathematical impairments (acalculia) are frequently comorbid. Only one prior study by Baldo & Dronkers (2007) has used voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) to explore commonalities between arithmetic and language comprehension in a sample of post-stroke participants. They found that arithmetic and language comprehension were associated with both converging areas (inferior frontal gyrus) and distinct areas (left inferior parietal lobe and left superior and middle temporal gyri, respectively). The current study explores whether these results can be replicated through a similar preliminary sample of 50 chronic post-stroke participants using the same Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) calculation subtest. We assessed participants on the WAB to derive an aphasia quotient for each individual. Participants were categorized as having no aphasia, mild aphasia, or moderate/severe aphasia. Identical to Baldo & Dronkers, we used the WAB calculation subtest as a measure of arithmetic ability across operation types (i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). To assess language comprehension, we isolated the Auditory Verbal Comprehension score from the WAB. We replicated an ANCOVA using the same covariates employed by Baldo & Dronkers (age, education, lesion volume, months post-onset). Our results were in line with the prior findings, demonstrating a main effect of aphasia severity on performance and an interaction effect between aphasia severity and measure, where the difference in calculation versus comprehension scores varied by severity. Next, we employed VLSM using the same threshold parameters and found, similar to the results of Baldo & Dronkers, evidence that the left inferior frontal territory contributes to both arithmetic and language comprehension. In this preliminary sample, voxels within the parietal territory did not meet criteria for inclusion in the VLSM map (n < 15); however, acquisition of the intended full sample should allow for a test of the replicability of the calculation-specific VLSM parietal cluster reported by Baldo & Dronkers. Based upon the results in hand, our findings converge with Baldo & Dronkers to suggest that there are shared neural substrates between language comprehension and simple arithmetic.
Topic Areas: Disorders: Acquired,