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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