Journal
BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
Volume 127, Issue 2, Pages 157-166Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2013.06.003
Keywords
Primary progressive aphasia; Nonfiuent; Semantic; Dorsal stream; Ventral stream; Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); Diffusion tensor MRI; Tractography; Tract-based spatial statistics
Funding
- Italian Ministry of Health [GR-2010-2303035]
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Nonfluent (NFV) and semantic (SV) variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) are associated with distinct patterns of focal cortical atrophy and underlying pathology. Previous diffusion tensor (DT) MRI studies showed a more ventral white matter (WM) involvement in SV patients and a more widespread frontal involvement in NFV. Aim of this manuscript is twofold. First, we wished to provide a brief state-of-the-art review on WM damage in PPA. Second, we used DT MRI to assess the topography of WM microstructural damage along dorsal and ventral language pathways and corpus callosum in patients with NFV and SV. Our findings show that the two PPA variants share an overlapping pattern of dorsal and ventral pathway abnormalities. In addition to these common abnormalities, variant-specific WM changes were also found, with NFV patients having a more severe damage to the dorsal (fronto-parietal) WM connections within the left superior longitudinal fasciculus/arcuate and SV patients showing a greater left ventral tract involvement (inferior longitudinal and uncinate fasciculi). These findings offer evidence that both dorsal and ventral language networks may contribute to the relatively selective deficits in NFV and SV patients. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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