Janine Möbes

Perception of emotional speech in Parkinson's disease.

Nonmotor symptoms in Parkinsons disease (PD) involving cognition and emotionality have progressively received attention. The objective of the present study was to investigate recognition of emotional prosody in patients with PD (n = 14) in comparison to healthy control subjects (HC, n = 14). Event‐related brain potentials (ERP) were recorded in a modified oddball paradigm under passive listening and active target detection instructions. Results showed a poorer performance of PD patients in classifying emotional prosody. ERP generated by emotional deviants (happy/sad) during passive listening revealed diminished amplitudes of the mismatch‐related negativity for sad deviants, indicating an impairment of early preattentive processing of emotional prosody in PD.

Emotional Speech in Parkinson's Disease

Patients with Parkinsons disease (PD) tend to speak monotonously with minor modulation of pitch and intensity. The goal of this study was to find out whether these speech changes can be explained mainly by motor impairment, i.e. akinesia and rigidity of the articulatory apparatus, or whether alterations of emotional processing play an additional role. Sixteen patients with mild PD and 16 healthy controls (HC) were compared. Fundamental frequencies (pitch) and intensities (loudness) were determined as (1) maximal upper and lower values achieved in nonemotional speech (phonation capacity), (2) upper and lower values used when speaking “Anna” in emotional intonation (neutral, sad, happy) as requested (production task), or (3) when imitating a professional speaker (imitation task). Although groups did not significantly differ in their phonation capacity, patients showed a significantly smaller pitch and intensity range than HC in the production task. In the imitation task, however, ranges were again similar. These results suggest that alterations of emotional processing contribute to speech changes in PD, especially regarding emotional prosody, in addition to motor impairment.

Neuropsychologische Störungen bei einem monozygoten Zwillingspaar mit Chorea-Akanthozytose

Zusammenfassung: Chorea-Akanthozytose (ChAc) ist eine seltene, genetisch bedingte Erkrankung, welche durch charakteristische neurologische und psychiatrische Symptome gekennzeichnet ist. In der vorliegenden Fallbeschreibung wird ein mannliches monozygotes Zwillingspaar vorgestellt, das aufgrund ahnlicher Kombinationen komplexer Bewegungsstorungen (choreatische und parkinsonahnliche Bewegungen), Dystonien und Vokalisationen sowie Verhaltensauffalligkeiten und kognitive Beeintrachtigungen als Tourette-Syndrom fehldiagnostiziert wurde. Eine ausfuhrliche neuropsychologische Untersuchung deutete auf eine fronto-subkortikale Demenz, wobei einige Befunde zwischen den Brudern diskrepant waren. Die unterschiedlichen Ergebnisse der neurologischen, neuropsychologischen und psychiatrischen Untersuchung lassen annehmen, dass neben genetischen auch nicht-genetische Faktoren die klinische Symptomatik der ChAc Patienten beeinflussen. Daruber hinaus verdeutlicht der Fallbericht, dass eine detaillierte neuropsychologische ...

Die audiovisuelle Sprachverarbeitung bei Patienten mit Cochlea-Implantat

Zusammenfassung: Mit Hilfe der elektrischen Reizung des Hornervs durch implantierte Elektroden in die Horschnecke (Cochlea-Implantat: CI) kann bei Ertaubten die Fahigkeit zur Wahrnehmung akustischer Sprachlaute wieder hergestellt werden. Aufgrund der herabgesetzten akustische Qualitat der Signale ziehen diese zusatzliche visuelle Informationen heran. Akustische Sprachreize (zweisilbige Substantive) wurden zeitgleich zu einem Video-Segment mit dem Gesicht des Sprechers dargeboten, das entweder dem akustischen Wort kongruente (z. B. Audio: Hotel, Video: Hotel) oder inkongruente Information (z. B. Audio: Hotel, Video: Insel) aussprach. Die Analyse der Verhaltensdaten ergab, dass CI-Patienten deutlich von der zusatzlichen Darbietung des Sprechergesichtes profitieren, um Sprachlaute zu verstehen. Auch Normalhorende nutzen visuelle Informationen, vor allem, wenn die akustischen Signale verrauscht und schwer verstandlich sind. Die audiovisuelle Sprachverarbeitung lost bei CI-Nutzern und Normalhorenden unterschie...

Perception and production of emotional speech in Parkinson's disease

not received. CS3.5 Functional connectivity of the mesial temporal lobe in humans: an electrical study

Auditory orienting to speech and environmental sounds

Introduction: Attentional effects in the timeframe of the eventrelated N1 potential have been described and addressed as ‘‘N1effect’’ more than thirty years ago. In the meantime, this effect has been widely used as a tool to investigate attentional processes. While there has been some debate whether about the character of this phenomenon, e.g. in the sense of an overlapping ‘‘processing negativity’’ on the basic and obligatory N1 potential, until recently no doubt has been formulated about the temporal lobe/auditory cortex origin of this effect. In the last years however, some hints exist for an additional contribution of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to the N1 effect: Based on different source localization techniques like dipoles or LORETA, an ACC-generator of the N1 potential has been described. Very recently, an ACC-generator during the N1-timeframe has also been described using intracranial measurements. In the present study we used trial by trial coupling of simultameous EEG and fMRI to investigate the neural generators of the N1-potential in choice reaction tasks. Methods: We investigated ten healthy subjects. The task was a choice reaction paradigm: Two · 30 tones of different pitches (800 and 1300 Hz) were presented by earphones at 85 dB SPL with pseudo-randomized sequence and interstimulus intervals (ISI: 2.5– 7.5 s). The subjects had to press the correct button. FMRI-data: (1.5 T Sonata scanner (Siemens); gradient echo EPI sequence; 12 slices; matrix: 128 · 128; slice thickness: 8 mm; interslice-gap: 0.4 mm; interleaved slice acquisition) were acquired in temporal synchrony to the task. BrainVoyager was used to compare differences in task specific BOLD responses. EEG signals were recorded simultaneously (61 channels; Cz reference; 1000 Hz sampling). After artefact correction, single trial modulations of the N1-potential amplitudes were used for a convolution with a hemodynamic response function to calculate the corresponding BOLD-effects. Results and conclusion: Main fMRI activation patterns using this method were found in the auditory cortex. As expected, additional dorsal anterior cingulate cortex activations were found. These results suggest a contribution of the dorsal ACC to the N1-effect.