Language processing in glioma patients: speed or accuracy as a sensitive measure?

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic and tumour characteristics. Education level based on Verhage (1964): Dutch classification system including 7 categories. 1: did not finish primary school, 2: finished primary school, 3: did not finish secondary school, 4: finished secondary school, low level, 5: finished secondary school, medium level, 6: finished secondary school, highest level, and/or college degree, 7: university degree).

Demographic characteristics for patients and control participants
Group		Patients	Control participants
Gender	Female	12	20
	Male	24	15
Mean age (range)		45.37 (18–73)	42.75 (19–61)
Mean education (range)		5.36 (3–7)	5.53 (3–7)
Handedness	Right	28	N/A
	Left	8	N/A
Tumour characteristics for 36 patients
Variable		Count (%)
Hemispheric lateralisation	Left hemisphere	24 (67)
	Right hemisphere	12 (33)
Tumour localisation: lobe	Frontal	19 (53)
	Temporal	7 (19)
	Insular	1 (3)
	Parietal	3 (8)
	Frontoparietal	2 (6)
	Parietotemporal	1 (3)
	Temporoparietal	1 (3)
	Frontotemporal	2 (6)
Tumour histological type	Astrocytoma	13 (36)
	Oligodendroglioma	12 (33)
	Glioblastoma	10 (28)
	Xanthoastrocytoma	1 (3)
Tumour grade (WHO classification)	Grade I	1 (3)
	Grade II	20 (56)
	Grade II	5 (14)
	Grade IV	10 (26)

Table 2. Individual patient scores. Table legend: PP; participant number, Age; age in years at time of assessment, Edu; education level based on Verhage (1964), Sex; male (M) or female (F), Hand; handedness left (L) or right (R), Grade; tumour grade from I–IV based on WHO classification, Location; location of the tumour: left (L) or right (R) hemisphere followed by lobe, WFP; word-finding problems, BNT; score on Boston Naming Test, TT; score on shortened Token Test, TMT-A; score (sec) on Trail Making Test-A, TMT-B; score (sec) on Trial Making Test-B, TMT-BA; ratio of difference score TMT part A and B, SJT; reaction times (ms) and accuracy scores on the Sentence Judgment Test. Deviant scores marked in bold.

PP	Age	Edu	Sex	Hand	Grade	Location	WFP	BNT	TT	TMT-A	TMT-B	TMT-BA	SJT
													Semantics	Syntax	Phonology	Accuracy
1	18	6	M	L	I	L Frontal	No	58	36	21	38	1.8	1759	2459	1824	15
2	21	5	M	R	III	L Fronto-parietal	Mild	45	34	41	100	2.4	3313	4473	2842	12
3	23	5	F	R	II	L Frontal	Clear	56	36	28	64	2.3
4	23	6	M	R	IV	L Frontal	No	48	36	17	33	1.9	1723	2088	1333	15
5	32	5	F	L	III	L Fronto-temporal	Clear	49	31	55	174	3.2
6	32	5	M	R	III	R Parietal	No	51	28	29	80	2.8
7	33	4	M	R	II	R Frontal	Mild	44	34	37	108	2.9	2696	4035	2827	14
8	34	5	M	L	II	L Frontal	No	48	33	29	58	2.0
9	36	7	M	R	II	R Frontal	Mild	58	34	24	34	1.4	1479	1576	1327	15
10	36	5	M	R	II	L Frontal	Clear	54	33	34	84	2.5	6695	5977	4228	11
11	36	6	M	R	IV	L Temporo-parietal	Clear	54	35	19	46	2.4	3647	3012	1491	15
12	42	5	F	L	IV	L Temporal	Clear	34	25	46	127	2.8	3163	4300	2991	15
13	42	5	F	R	IV	L Frontal	No	38	34	23	84	3.7	3648	2660	2707	13
14	42	7	M	R	III	R Parieto-temporal	Mild	57	35	22	48	2.2	2404	2421	1441	11
15	43	5	F	R	II	R Frontal	No	52	34	17	56	3.3	1578	2180	1142	15
16	45	5	M	R	II	R Fronto-parietal	Clear	56	36	24	87	3.6
17	46	6	M	L	III	L Frontal	Mild	50	36	18	40	2.2	2468	4789	2271	14
18	47	3	F	R	II	L Frontal	No	48	35	30	103	3.4
19	47	5	M	R	II	R Temporal	Mild						2898	2597	2211	12
20	48	5	M	R	II	R Frontal	No	49	33	41	52	1.3	2309	3157	1405	14
21	49	6	F	L	IV	L Frontal	No	56	30	27	62	2.3
22	49	5	F	R	II	R Temporal	No	54	35	31	60	1.9	2506	3582	1599	14
23	50	7	M	R	II	R Frontal	No	59	35	14	38	2.7	1596	2408	1404	15
24	51	5	F	R	II	L Parietal	Mild	35	35	21	34	1.6
25	51	6	M	R	II	L Insular	Clear	48	35	33	52	1.6
26	51	7	M	R	II	L Frontal	No	58	36	19	34	1.8
27	52	5	M	R	II	L Temporal	Mild	54		29	80	2.8
28	53	4	M	L	II	L Parietal	No	34	33	35	79	2.3
29	54	5	F	R	IV	L Temporal	Mild	44
30	57	5	M	R	II	R Frontal	Mild	36	36	42	56	1.3	2210	2683	1853	13
31	59	6	M	R	II	R Fronto-temporal	No	53	36	15	49	3.3	2586	2152	2774	13
32	62	5	F	R	II	L Temporal	Mild	55		17	37	2.2	1414	2097	1103	12
33	63	5	M	R	IV	L Frontal	Mild	53	35				3329	3614	3225	13
34	66	5	M	R	IV	L Frontal	No		32	53	106	2.0
35	69	6	F	L	IV	L Temporal	Clear	20	32.5	38	199	5.2
36	73	6	M	R	IV	L Frontal	Clear	54	35	48	318	6.6	5595	6030	4928	14

Figure 1. Reaction times (in milliseconds) and accuracy (percentage correct) on the SJT for healthy control participants (HC) and patients (PT) and per linguistic domain. Error bars represent the standard error.

Figure 2. Scores (in seconds) on the TMT-A and TMT-B and ratio scores on TMT-BA per participant group. Error bars represent the standard error.

Figure 3. Correlations between the reaction times (milliseconds) on the SJT and the TMT-A (A), TMT-B (B), and TMT-BA (C).

Figure 4. Visualisation of linear regression model of the reported severity of word-finding problems predicted by the reaction times (milliseconds) on the SJT.

Table A. BNT Score by group, age, and education level.

	Estimate	Std.Error	t-value	p-value
(Intercept)	51.082	0.812	62.908	0.000
Group	3.543	1.624	2.182	0.033*
Age	−0.022	0.061	−0.352	0.726
Education level	3.422	0.945	3.621	0.001*
Group x Age	0.275	0.122	2.249	0.028*
Group x Education level	−0.963	1.890	−0.510	0.612
Age x Education level	−0.049	0.086	−0.574	0.568
Group x Age x Education level	0.093	0.172	0.542	0.590

Table B. Reaction times on the sentence judgment test.

	Estimate	Std.Error	df	t-value	p-value
(Intercept)	7.612	0.054	40.535	141.781	0.000
Group	0.016	0.081	47.968	0.201	0.841
Education level	−0.131	0.050	48.042	−2.623	0.012*
Age	0.000	0.003	47.937	0.157	0.876
Order	−0.010	0.002	722.384	−5.320	0.000*
Semantics-Phonology	0.165	0.051	11.803	3.206	0.008*
Syntax-Phonology	0.357	0.052	11.957	6.920	0.000*
Group x Education level	0.008	0.100	48.023	0.081	0.936
Group x Age	−0.003	0.006	47.951	−0.438	0.663
Education level x Age	0.015	0.005	47.996	3.222	0.002*
Order x Condition Sem-Phon	0.007	0.003	722.336	2.450	0.015*
Order x Condition Syn-Phon	0.009	0.003	724.654	3.109	0.002*
Group x Education x Age	−0.018	0.009	48.001	−1.947	0.057

Table C. Summary accuracy scores Sentence Judgment Test.

	Estimate	Std.Error	z-value	p-value
(Intercept)	6.850	2.154	3.180	0.001
Group	1.156	0.414	2.790	0.005*
Education level	0.431	0.248	1.740	0.082
Age	0.010	0.014	0.706	0.480
Order	0.201	0.200	1.009	0.313
Semantics-Phonology	−3.351	2.169	−1.545	0.122
Syntax-Phonology	−4.485	2.155	−2.081	0.037*
Group x Education level	−0.136	0.497	−0.273	0.785
Group x Age	0.023	0.029	0.810	0.418
Education level x Age	−0.008	0.020	−0.413	0.680
Order x Condition Sem-Phon	−0.233	0.204	−1.143	0.253
Order x Condition Syn-Phon	−0.128	0.202	−0.637	0.524
Group x Education x Age	−0.011	0.039	−0.285	0.775

Table D. TMT-A Score by group, age, and education level.

	Estimate	Std.Error	t-value	p-value
(Intercept)	3.351	0.039	86.054	0.000
Group	0.082	0.078	1.048	0.299
Age	0.002	0.003	0.541	0.591
Education level	−0.131	0.045	−2.886	0.005*
Group x Age	−0.006	0.006	−1.090	0.280
Group x Education level	0.132	0.091	1.454	0.151
Age x Education level	0.006	0.004	1.373	0.175
Group x Age x Education level	−0.004	0.008	−0.479	0.633

Table E. TMT-B Score by group, age, and education level.

	Estimate	Std.Error	t-value	p-value
(Intercept)	4.100	0.044	93.613	0.000
Group	−0.125	0.088	−1.431	0.158
Age	0.004	0.003	1.175	0.245
Education level	−0.181	0.051	−3.562	0.001*
Group x Age	−0.011	0.007	−1.683	0.098
Group x Education level	0.188	0.101	1.851	0.069
Age x Education level	0.018	0.005	3.831	0.000*
Group x Age x Education level	−0.028	0.009	−2.988	0.004*

Table F. Ratio score TMT-BA score by group, age, and education level.

	Estimate	Std.Error	t-value	p-value
(Intercept)	2.249	0.094	23.900	0.000
Group	−0.558	0.188	−2.966	0.004*
Age	0.013	0.007	1.790	0.079
Education level	−0.101	0.109	−0.926	0.358
Group x Age	−0.027	0.014	−1.891	0.063
Group x Education level	0.129	0.218	0.593	0.555
Age x Education level	0.033	0.010	3.307	0.002*
Group x Age x Education level	−0.067	0.020	−3.345	0.001*

Verhage, F. (1964). Intelligentie en leeftijd: Onderzoek bij Nederlanders van twaalf tot zevenenzeventig jaar. Van Gorcum.

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