Oral and written narrative comprehension in left-brain damaged individuals and brain volumes correlates

Event Abstract Back to Event Oral and written narrative comprehension in left-brain damaged individuals and brain volumes correlates Sabrine Martins1, Alexandre Nikolaev2, Alexandre R. Franco3, Ricardo B. Soder4, Ellen C. Siqueira1, Fernanda Schneider1, Fernanda S. Loureiro5, Luiz Carlos P. Marrone6 and Lilian C. Hübner1* 1 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Linguistics, Brazil 2 University of Helsinki, Finland 3 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Engineering, Brazil 4 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Medicine School, Brazil 5 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Gerotology and Geriatrics Institut, Brazil 6 Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Sul, Brain Institute - InsCer, Brazil Introduction: Research with left-brain damaged (LBD) participants suggests they present difficulties in comprehending words and sentences (Ortiz, 2010). Little is known about the influence of a lesion at the textual/discursive level, including comparisons between oral and written presentation modalities. It seems that LBD participants lack comprehension mainly at macrolinguistic structures (Karaduman, Göksun & Chatterjee, 2017). In addition, brain areas from frontal, temporal and parietal lobes of both hemispheres seem to be involved in the text comprehension (Babajani-Feremi, 2017; Barbey; Colom & Grafman, 2014). However, more conclusive data are necessary correlating behavioral and brain evidence in discourse processing in left brain lesion. Aim: to analyze comprehension of written and orally presented short narratives by LBD participants compared to controls in their performance at the micro- and macrolinguistic levels, and the correlated brain volumes in the areas involved in this type of processing. Method: Participants: 10 LBD participants (mean age 66,4, SD = 8,89, 1 F/ mean schooling 7,4 y/SD = 3,56), and 10 matched healthy controls (mean age 66,3, SD = 8,73, 9 F/ mean schooling 6,9 y/SD = 3,92). Instruments and procedures: Subjects were asked to retell in details six short narratives, presented in oral or written modalities. Following, they answered to five interpretation questions. Structural MRI sessions were used to collect brain volume data using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Results: Controls showed significantly higher performance than LBD participants at the macrolinguistic level of oral narratives (p=0,04) as compared to written ones. This finding suggests LBD participants have difficulties in the application of macrolinguistic rules of deletion, construction and generalization to understand macrolinguistic structure of a text, with increased difficulty in dealing with the written modality. Morphometry data of brain regions indicated an integration of areas in the left and right hemispheres to perform text comprehension in oral and written modalities. In the left hemisphere, density variations were observed in precuneus, cerebellum white matter, superior frontal region and medial orbitofrontal region, while in the right hemisphere variations were seen in the accumbens and superior temporal sulcus. Density increase in the right superior temporal sulcus, left precuneus, left cerebellar white matter and superior frontal region positively correlate with higher performance. The left medial orbitofrontal region shows a negative correlation with performance. The right accumbens seems to compensate left hemisphere demands, showing increased density in the LBD participants and reduced volume in controls. Conclusions: Significant differences were observed in groups’ comparisons at the macrolinguistic level of oral texts. Although modalities differed, significant lower performance was observed only in the oral modality by the LBD group as compared to controls. Analysis of VBM demonstrated that a variation in density of different left and right hemisphere areas relates to performance in text comprehension. More specifically, the volume of left hemisphere regions such as precuneus, superior temporal sulcus, superior frontal, medial orbitofrontal areas and cerebellum white matter, and right hemisphere areas at the accumbens and superior temporal sulcus may impact LDB individual’s text comprehension. Acknowledgements Brazilian Funding Agencies: CNPq and CAPES References Babajani-Feremi, A. (2017). Neural Mechanism Underling Comprehension of Narrative Speech and Its Heritability: Study in a Large Population. Brain Topography, 30 (5), 592–609. doi: 10.1007/s10548-017-0550-6. Barbey, A. K.; Colom, R. & Grafman, J. (2014). Neural mechanisms of discourse comprehension: A human lesion study. Brain, 137(1), 277–287. doi: 10.1093/brain/awt312. Karaduman, A.; Göksun, T. & Chatterjee, A. (2017). Narratives of focal brain injured individuals: A macro-level analysis. Neuropsychologia, October (99), 314–325. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.03.027 Ortiz, K. Z. (2010). Distúrbios Neurológicos Adquiridos: Linguagem e Cognição, 2ª ed, Baurueri, São Paulo: Manole. Keywords: text comprehension, left-hemisphere brain damage, narratives, Text modality, Voxel Based Morphometry Conference: Academy of Aphasia 56th Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, 21 Oct - 23 Oct, 2018. Presentation Type: poster presentation Topic: not eligible for a student prize Citation: Martins S, Nikolaev A, Franco AR, Soder RB, Siqueira EC, Schneider F, Loureiro FS, Marrone LP and Hübner LC (2019). Oral and written narrative comprehension in left-brain damaged individuals and brain volumes correlates. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 56th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.228.00012 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Apr 2018; Published Online: 22 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: PhD. Lilian C Hübner, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Linguistics, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 90670000, Brazil, lilian.c.hubner@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Sabrine Martins Alexandre Nikolaev Alexandre R Franco Ricardo B Soder Ellen C Siqueira Fernanda Schneider Fernanda S Loureiro Luiz Carlos P Marrone Lilian C Hübner Google Sabrine Martins Alexandre Nikolaev Alexandre R Franco Ricardo B Soder Ellen C Siqueira Fernanda Schneider Fernanda S Loureiro Luiz Carlos P Marrone Lilian C Hübner Google Scholar Sabrine Martins Alexandre Nikolaev Alexandre R Franco Ricardo B Soder Ellen C Siqueira Fernanda Schneider Fernanda S Loureiro Luiz Carlos P Marrone Lilian C Hübner PubMed Sabrine Martins Alexandre Nikolaev Alexandre R Franco Ricardo B Soder Ellen C Siqueira Fernanda Schneider Fernanda S Loureiro Luiz Carlos P Marrone Lilian C Hübner Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.