393
Views
19
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Frontal and temporal lobe involvement on verbal fluency measures in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

, , , , , , & show all
Pages 913-922 | Received 27 Aug 2009, Accepted 04 Jan 2010, Published online: 13 Apr 2010
 

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been associated with changes in frontal and temporal lobe-mediated cognitive and behavioral functions. Verbal fluency, a sensitive measure to these changes, was utilized to investigate phonemic and semantic abilities in 49 ALS patients and 25 healthy controls (HCs). A subset of the ALS patients was classified as ALS-intact, ALS with mild cognitive impairments (ALS-mild), and ALS with fronto-temporal dementia (ALS-FTD) based on a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. Clustering and switching, the underlying component processes of verbal fluency, were analyzed using Troyer's (CitationTroyer, Moscovitch, & Winocur, 1997) and Abwender's (CitationAbwender, Swan, Bowerman, & Connolly, 2001) scoring systems. ALS patients exhibited decreased fluency versus HCs. For phonemic fluency, the intact ALS sample generated fewer clusters and more switches than the ALS-mild and ALS-FTD patients using both scoring systems. This suggests temporal involvement in ALS patients, with increasing frontal lobe involvement in patients with greater cognitive dysfunction. For semantic fluency, similar results were obtained with a greater emphasis on declines in clustering or increased temporal lobe dysfunction. These results suggest that verbal fluency measures identify frontal and temporal lobe involvement in the cognitive decline associated with ALS, particularly when the component processes are evaluated. The clinical utility of these scoring systems with ALS patients is also discussed.

The authors thank the Lou DeGeorge family for its invaluable support. The research was funded in part by the Veteran's Affairs, Office of Research and Development. Disclosure: The authors have reported no conflicts of interest.

Notes

aAdjustment from Greek normalization (CitationKopsmidis, Vlahou, Panagiotaki, & Kiosseoglou, 2004).

bAdjustment from fluency following pallidotomy (CitationYork et al., 2003).

cOur adjustments.

dAdjustments from reliability (CitationRoss et al., 2007) citing CitationAbwender et al. (2001).

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.