A systematic linguistic profile of spontaneous narrative speech in pre-symptomatic and early stage Huntington's disease.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive decline accompanying the clinically more salient motor symptoms of Huntington's disease (HD) has been widely noted and can precede motor symptoms onset. Less clear is how such decline bears on language functions in everyday life, though a small number of experimental studies have revealed difficulties with the application of rule-based aspects of language in early stages of the disease. Here we aimed to determine whether there is a systematic linguistic profile that characterizes spontaneous narrative speech in both pre-manifest and/or early manifest HD, and how it is related to striatal degeneration and neuropsychological profiles. Twenty-eight early-stage patients (19 manifest and 9 gene-carriers in the pre-manifest stage), matched with 28 controls, participated in a story-tell

SUBMITTER: Hinzen W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5845634 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature