On the parallel deterioration of lexico-semantic processes in the bilinguals’ two languages: Evidence from Alzheimer's disease

• Published in: Neuropsychologia Vol. 50; no. 5; pp. 740 - 753
• Main Authors: Costa, Albert, Calabria, Marco, Marne, Paula, Hernández, Mireia, Juncadella, Montserrat, Gascón-Bayarri, Jordi, Lleó, Alberto, Ortiz-Gil, Jordi, Ugas, Lidia, Blesa, Rafael, Reñé, Ramon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Alzheimer Disease - complications; Alzheimer's disease; Alzheimers Disease; Analysis of Variance; Bilingualism; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Dysfunction - complications; Cognitive Processes; Comparative Analysis; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Diseases; Evidence; Female; Humans; Language; Language breakdown; Language Disorders - diagnosis; Language Disorders - etiology; Language Processing; Linguistic Performance; Linguistics; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Status Schedule; Multilingualism; Names; Neurodegenerative diseases; Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Paired-Associate Learning; Patients; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression Analysis; Semantics; Surveys and Questionnaires; Translating; Translation; Vocabulary; Word Frequency; Language breakdown; Alzheimer's disease; Bilingualism; Human; Nervous system diseases; Alzheimer disease; Cognition; Experimental study; Cerebral disorder; Language; Semantics; Central nervous system disease; Degenerative disease; Elderly
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.01.008

► We explored how Alzheimer's disease affects the language deterioration of bilinguals. ► Naming and translation performances of AD and MCI patients were compared. ► AD affected the two languages similarly as a function of the disease progression. ► The two languages are represented within a common brain network. In this article we aimed to assess how Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is neurodegenerative, affects the linguistic performance of early, high-proficient bilinguals in their two languages. To this end, we compared the Picture Naming and Word Translation performances of two groups of AD patients varying in disease progression (Mild and Moderate) with that of bilingual individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The results revealed that the linguistic deterioration caused by AD affected the two languages similarly. We also found that cognate status and word frequency were two major determinants of language performance in all three groups of participants. These results are consistent with the notion of a common neural substrate recruited to represent and process the two languages of high-proficient bilinguals.