Page 79 - Javanan Magazine Issue # 1911

PSYCHOLOGICAL
PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUE No. 1911
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES JAVANAN
ISSUE No. 1856
JAVANAN
Dr. Alan A. PREDICTING DEMENTIA BEFORE IT HITS
Modarressi
Clinical and
Neuro-Psychologyst Language-Processing Difficulties as Early Signs

A new research by the Cornell
University, et al shows that indi-
viduals with mild cognitive impair-
ment, especially of the “amnestic Henderson of Cornell University. person referred to via a pronoun. The current paper is part of an on-
subtype” (aMCI), are at increased Anaphora and ambiguity-To They say it’s not that aMCI pa- going series of studies that Flynn,
risk for dementia due to Alzheim- conduct the study, the scholars ran tients have lost the ability to process Lust, Sherman, and their colleagues
er’s disease relative to cognitively experiments comparing the cogni- syntax or put complex sentences have performed. The findings have
healthy older adults. Now, a study tive performance of aMCI patients together, or lost words; it’s that implications for potentially steer-
co-authored by researchers from to cognitively healthy individuals they’re showing a deficit when the ing neuroscience studies toward
regions of the brain that process
mind has to figure out whether to
in separate younger and older con-
MIT, Cornell University, and Mas- trol groups. The research involved stay in the sentence or go outside language, when investigating MCI
sachusetts General Hospital has 61 aMCI patients of
identified a key deficit in people Massachusetts Gen-
with aMCI, which relates to pro- eral Hospital, with
ducing complex language. control group re-
This deficit is independent of the
memory deficit that characterizes search conducted at
Cornell and MIT.
this group and may provide an ad- The study pin-
ditional “cognitive biomarker” to pointed how well
aid in early detection — the time people process and
when treatments, as they continue reproduce sentences
to be developed, are likely to be involving “anapho-
most effective. ra.” In linguistics
The researchers found that while terms, this generally
individuals with aMCI could ap- refers to the relation
preciate the basic structure of sen- between a word and
tences (syntax) and their meaning another form in the
(semantics), they struggled with sentence, such the
processing certain ambiguous sen- use of “his” in the
tences in which pronouns alluded sentence, “The elec-
to people not referenced in the sen- trician repaired his
tences themselves. equipment.” (The
They report that these results are term “anaphora” has
among the first to deal with com- another related use in
plex syntax and really get at the ab- the field of rhetoric,
stract computation that’s involved involving the repeti-
in processing these linguistic struc- tion of terms.)
tures. In the study, the
The focus on subtleties in lan- researchers ran a va-
guage processing, in relation to riety of sentence con-
aMCI and its potential transition structions past aMCI
to dementia such as Alzheimer’s patients and the control groups. For it, to figure out who we’re talking and other forms of dementia, such
disease is novel, the researchers say. instance, in the sentence, “The elec- about. When they didn’t have to as primary progressive aphasia.
Previous research has looked most trician fixed the light switch when go outside the sentence for context, The study may also help inform lin-
often at single words and vocabu- he visited the tenant,” it is not actu- sentence production was preserved guistics theory concerning various
lary. We looked at a more complex ally clear if “he” refers to the elec- in the individuals with aMCI whom forms of anaphora.
level of language knowledge. When trician, or somebody else entirely. we studied. Looking ahead, the scholars
we process a sentence, we have to The “he” could be a family mem- Flynn notes: “This adds to our say they would like to increase the
both grasp its syntax and construct ber, friend, or landlord, among understanding of the deterioration size of the studies as part of an ef-
a other possibilities. that occurs in early stages of the fort to continue to define how it is
The paper’s authors are Flynn, a On the other hand, in the sen- dementia process. Deficits extend that diseases progress and how lan-
professor in MIT’s Department of tence, “He visited the tenant when beyond memory loss. While the guage may be a predictor of that.
Linguistics and Philosophy; Lust, the electrician repaired the light participants we studied have mem- They noted, “Our data is a small
a professor emerita in the Depart- switch,” “he” and the electrician ory deficits, their memory difficul- population but very richly theoreti-
ment of Psychology at Cornell and cannot be the same person. Al- ties do not explain our language cally guided. You need hypotheses
a visiting scholar and research af- ternately, in the sentence, “The findings, as evidenced by a lack of that are linguistically informed to
filiate in the MIT Department of babysitter emptied the bottle and correlation in their performance make advances in neurolinguis-
Linguistics and Philosophy; Janet prepared the formula,” there is no on the language task and their per- tics. There’s so much interest in the
Cohen Sherman, an associate pro- reference at all to a person beyond formances on measures of memory. years before Alzheimer’s disease is
fessor of psychology in the Depart- the sentence. Ultimately, aMCI This suggests that in addition to the diagnosed, to see if it can be caught
ment of Psychiatry at Massachu- patients performed significantly memory difficulties that individu- and its progression stopped. As Fly-
setts General Hospital and director worse than the control groups when als with aMCI experience, they are nn adds, “The more precise we can
of the MGH Psychology Assessment producing sentences with “ana- also struggling with this central as- become about the neuronal locus of
Center; and, posthumously, the phoric coreference,” the ones with pect of language.” deterioration, that’s going to make
scholars James Gair and Charles ambiguity about the identity of the Looking for a path to treatment- a big difference in terms of develop-

DANESH FOROUGHI, PH.D. Alan Modarressi, PhD, QME
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, PSY13680 Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Licensed Marriage, Family & Child Psychotherapist, MFC23455 Qualified Medical Evaluator
Certified National Board of Addiction Examiners #4974 Certified Psychophsychologist
Tel: (310) 940-3642 Diplomat, American Academy of Pain Management

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