INS NYC 2024 Program

Poster	Poster Session 11 Program Schedule 02/17/2024 10:45 am - 12:00 pm Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120) Poster Session 11: Cultural Neuropsychology \| Education/Training \| Professional Practice Issues Final Abstract #70 Dyslexia Profiles and Brain Metabolism in Spanish-Speaking Patients With Primary Progressive Aphasia Florentina Morello García, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina Ismael Calandri, Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, Department of Neurology, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands Lucía Crivelli, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina Micaela Difalcis, Psychology Research Institute, Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina Samanta Leiva, Psychology Research Institute, Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina Aldo Ferreres, Neuropsychology Unit, Acute General Interzonal Hospital Eva Perón, Buenos Aires, Argentina Ricardo Allegri, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina Category: Neurodegenerative Disorders Keyword 1: dyslexia Keyword 2: neuroimaging: functional Keyword 3: language disorder Objective: Reading is one of the cognitive abilities reported to be altered in patients diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Particularly, in the semantic variant, surface dyslexia is among the diagnostic criteria. In the logopenic and non-fluent variants, although not considered for their diagnoses, the presence of dyslexia has been documented. Reports in the Spanish-speaking context are scarce. Studying dyslexia in Spanish presents certain complexity due to the transparency of this language. The lack of irregular words does not allow for the identification of different subtypes of dyslexia with reading tasks. The aims of this research are: 1) to study the reading impairments presented by Spanish-speaking patients with PPA using tests that consider the particularities of the linguistic environment, and 2) to identify metabolic abnormalities in brain regions by analyzing the patients’ FDG-PET studies. Participants and Methods: We conducted a case-control design, including 14 patients diagnosed with PPA (2 svPPA, 8 lvPPA, 4 nfvPPA), and 52 healthy control subjects matched by sex, age, and education. We performed case-control comparisons and intrasubject analysis. The linguistic battery included word and non-word reading (W-NWRead), reading of foreign words (FWRead), and visual lexical decision with pseudohomophones (VLDPsh) tasks. To assess hypometabolism, we conducted ¹⁸F-FDG PET on all subjects, and the images were analyzed using SPM. We adjusted a prediction model of ¹⁸F-FDG signal in control subjects based on age, sex, and education. We employed the fitted model to determine the w-score for each patient. We defined a region as abnormal if they fell within a w-score below -1.5. Results: The results showed that 93% of the patients presented dyslexia. These impairments were observed across all PPA variants. Regarding the dyslexic patterns, 3 cases of surface dyslexia (impairments in the lexical reading mechanism), 2 cases of phonological dyslexia (impairments in the phonological reading mechanism), 1 case of mixed dyslexia (impairments in both reading mechanisms), and 7 unspecified cases (not corresponding to any known subtypes of dyslexia) were identified. Results from FDG-PET showed hypometabolism in the following left regions: ventral occipitotemporal, ventral inferior parietal and superior temporal cortices, and ventral inferior frontal gyrus. Conclusions: This study provides relevant data on the presence and types of dyslexia displayed by Spanish-speaking patients with PPA, as well as the possibility of identifying these patterns in a transparent language. As Spanish does not have irregular words for reading, tasks such as W-NWRead assess the integrity of phonological mechanisms. Our findings highlight the need for tasks such as FWRead and VLDPsh to assess lexical reading mechanisms. Additionally, the results emphasize the importance of studying reading, as it has been observed to be affected in 93% of the sample. On the other hand, our findings of hypometabolism in brain regions bring more information about the metabolic deficits observed in PPA patients and are consistent with the reported data about regions associated with reading. Our next step will be to consider the inclusion of patients without dyslexia, as this could potentially be a key strategy in identifying the specific involvement of these latter described areas in reading symptoms.

Poster

02/17/2024
10:45 am - 12:00 pm
Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120)

Poster Session 11: Cultural Neuropsychology | Education/Training | Professional Practice Issues

Final Abstract #70

Dyslexia Profiles and Brain Metabolism in Spanish-Speaking Patients With Primary Progressive Aphasia

Florentina Morello García, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ismael Calandri, Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, Department of Neurology, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lucía Crivelli, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Micaela Difalcis, Psychology Research Institute, Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Samanta Leiva, Psychology Research Institute, Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Aldo Ferreres, Neuropsychology Unit, Acute General Interzonal Hospital Eva Perón, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ricardo Allegri, Institute of Neurosciences (INEU) Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Category: Neurodegenerative Disorders

Keyword 1: dyslexia
Keyword 2: neuroimaging: functional
Keyword 3: language disorder

Objective:

Reading is one of the cognitive abilities reported to be altered in patients diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Particularly, in the semantic variant, surface dyslexia is among the diagnostic criteria. In the logopenic and non-fluent variants, although not considered for their diagnoses, the presence of dyslexia has been documented. Reports in the Spanish-speaking context are scarce. Studying dyslexia in Spanish presents certain complexity due to the transparency of this language. The lack of irregular words does not allow for the identification of different subtypes of dyslexia with reading tasks. The aims of this research are: 1) to study the reading impairments presented by Spanish-speaking patients with PPA using tests that consider the particularities of the linguistic environment, and 2) to identify metabolic abnormalities in brain regions by analyzing the patients’ FDG-PET studies.

Participants and Methods:

We conducted a case-control design, including 14 patients diagnosed with PPA (2 svPPA, 8 lvPPA, 4 nfvPPA), and 52 healthy control subjects matched by sex, age, and education. We performed case-control comparisons and intrasubject analysis. The linguistic battery included word and non-word reading (W-NWRead), reading of foreign words (FWRead), and visual lexical decision with pseudohomophones (VLDPsh) tasks. To assess hypometabolism, we conducted ¹⁸F-FDG PET on all subjects, and the images were analyzed using SPM. We adjusted a prediction model of ¹⁸F-FDG signal in control subjects based on age, sex, and education. We employed the fitted model to determine the w-score for each patient. We defined a region as abnormal if they fell within a w-score below -1.5.

Results:

The results showed that 93% of the patients presented dyslexia. These impairments were observed across all PPA variants. Regarding the dyslexic patterns, 3 cases of surface dyslexia (impairments in the lexical reading mechanism), 2 cases of phonological dyslexia (impairments in the phonological reading mechanism), 1 case of mixed dyslexia (impairments in both reading mechanisms), and 7 unspecified cases (not corresponding to any known subtypes of dyslexia) were identified. Results from FDG-PET showed hypometabolism in the following left regions: ventral occipitotemporal, ventral inferior parietal and superior temporal cortices, and ventral inferior frontal gyrus.

Conclusions:

This study provides relevant data on the presence and types of dyslexia displayed by Spanish-speaking patients with PPA, as well as the possibility of identifying these patterns in a transparent language. As Spanish does not have irregular words for reading, tasks such as W-NWRead assess the integrity of phonological mechanisms. Our findings highlight the need for tasks such as FWRead and VLDPsh to assess lexical reading mechanisms. Additionally, the results emphasize the importance of studying reading, as it has been observed to be affected in 93% of the sample. On the other hand, our findings of hypometabolism in brain regions bring more information about the metabolic deficits observed in PPA patients and are consistent with the reported data about regions associated with reading. Our next step will be to consider the inclusion of patients without dyslexia, as this could potentially be a key strategy in identifying the specific involvement of these latter described areas in reading symptoms.