This competing renewal investigates the role of number knowledge in word meaning. In the prior funding period, we discovered that non-aphasic patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) have difficulty with number knowledge, and that this interferes with their comprehension of number-based quantifiers like """"""""at least half"""""""" and """"""""most."""""""" MRI and pathology studies associated this with parietal disease. Converging evidence related quantifier comprehension to parietal activation during fMRI studies of healthy controls. We propose to show that the quantity component of number knowledge is responsible for a specific aspect of number-based quantifier meaning, and studies of CBD and fMRI work in healthy adults will relate this to the intraparietal sulcus. This collaborates with another, pragmatic component of quantifier meaning, and studies of non-aphasic patients with frontal disease due to frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and fMRI studies of healthy controls will relate this aspect of quantifier comprehension to prefrontal cortex. Quantifiers can be ambiguous, and a neuroeconomic approach to decision-making will be applied to the interpretation of quantifiers with ambiguous meaning. We will show that evaluating the probability of a specific interpretation is mediated by prefrontal cortex, that appreciating the value of unambiguous communication is related to orbital frontal cortex, and that the integration of these decision-making components is supported by inferior parietal cortex.

Public Health Relevance

In this competing renewal, we propose to show that the quantity component of number knowledge contributes to the representation of number-based quantifiers like at least half and most. Studies of patients with corticobasal degeneration and fMRI activation studies of healthy controls will relate this to inferior parietal cortex. This collaborates with another, pragmatic component of quantifiers, and studies of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration and fMRI studies of healthy adults will relate this to prefrontal cortex. Quantifiers can be ambiguous, and we will adopt a neuroeconomic approach to decision-making to help understand quantifier interpretation. This process will be mediated by a large-scale neural network including several frontal and parietal regions. The proposed work will provide important insights into the cognitive neuroscience of language and number while improving diagnostic accuracy in an elusive neurodegenerative condition.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01NS044266-10
Application #
8736014
Study Section
Language and Communication Study Section (LCOM)
Program Officer
Sutherland, Margaret L
Project Start
2004-05-01
Project End
2015-01-31
Budget Start
2014-02-01
Budget End
2015-01-31
Support Year
10
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$1,184,137
Indirect Cost
$433,136
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Olm, Christopher A; McMillan, Corey T; Irwin, David J et al. (2018) Longitudinal structural gray matter and white matter MRI changes in presymptomatic progranulin mutation carriers. Neuroimage Clin 19:497-506
Wisse, L E M; Adler, D H; Ittyerah, R et al. (2017) Comparison of In Vivo and Ex Vivo MRI of the Human Hippocampal Formation in the Same Subjects. Cereb Cortex 27:5185-5196
Taskesen, E; Mishra, A; van der Sluis, S et al. (2017) Susceptible genes and disease mechanisms identified in frontotemporal dementia and frontotemporal dementia with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis by DNA-methylation and GWAS. Sci Rep 7:8899
Ash, Sharon; Ternes, Kylie; Bisbing, Teagan et al. (2016) Dissociation of quantifiers and object nouns in speech in focal neurodegenerative disease. Neuropsychologia 89:141-152
Healey, Meghan L; Grossman, Murray (2016) Social Coordination in Older Adulthood: A Dual-Process Model. Exp Aging Res 42:112-7
Cousins, Katheryn A Q; York, Collin; Bauer, Laura et al. (2016) Cognitive and anatomic double dissociation in the representation of concrete and abstract words in semantic variant and behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration. Neuropsychologia 84:244-51
Pustina, Dorian; Coslett, H Branch; Turkeltaub, Peter E et al. (2016) Automated segmentation of chronic stroke lesions using LINDA: Lesion identification with neighborhood data analysis. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1405-21
Irwin, David J; Byrne, Matthew D; McMillan, Corey T et al. (2016) Semi-Automated Digital Image Analysis of Pick's Disease and TDP-43 Proteinopathy. J Histochem Cytochem 64:54-66
Olm, Christopher A; Kandel, Benjamin M; Avants, Brian B et al. (2016) Arterial spin labeling perfusion predicts longitudinal decline in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia. J Neurol 263:1927-38
Grossman, Murray; Irwin, David J (2016) The Mental Status Examination in Patients With Suspected Dementia. Continuum (Minneap Minn) 22:385-403

Showing the most recent 10 out of 180 publications