Publication Abstract Display | Type: Published Abstract | Title: Deficits in executive control of verbal list learning among individuals with methamphetamine dependence. | Authors: Woods SP, Rippeth JD, Conover E, Gongvatana A, Heaton RK, Grant I, and the HNRC Group | Year: 2004 | Publication: Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society | Volume: 10 Issue: Suppl S1 Pages: 199 | Abstract:Although HIV-1 infection is associated with cognitive impairment in domains mediated by frontalbasal
ganglia circuits, conventional measures of verbal fluency (e.g., category fluency) have
shown surprisingly unreliable sensitivity to HIV disease. However, action (verb) fluency - a verbal
fluency task requiring the spontaneous generation of verbs - has not previously been examined
in an HIV-infected sample. The action fluency task evolved from literature indicating that object
naming is principally mediated by left temporal-parietal networks, whereas verb naming is
primarily associated with left frontal-basal ganglia circuits. Consistent with this premise, studies
in Parkinson’s disease indicate that action fluency is more sensitive to frontal-basal ganglia
pathophysiology than lexical and semantic fluency. The present study examined action, letter (f),
and category (animals) verbal fluency in 20 healthy controls (HC) and 100 persons with HIV-1
infection who were comparable in demographics, handedness, and estimated verbal IQ. The HIV
+ group performed significantly worse on action fluency (p <= .01, d = -.57); however, there was
no significant difference for animal fluency (p > .10) and only a trend for the HIV+ group to
perform worse on letter fluency (p = .08). Findings indicate that persons infected with HIV-1
experience greatest difficulty in rapidly retrieving verbs from semantic memory, which is
consistent with research indicating that HIV-1 disease is associated with deficits in processing
speed and retrieval strategies mediated by frontal-basal ganglia circuits. Data also provide
further support for the construct validity of action fluency as a putative measure of frontal-basal
ganglia circuit functions. |
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