NEURAL NETWORK AND EYE MOVEMENTS DURING WORD COMPREHENSION IN HEALTHY COGNITIVE AGEING (HCA): A fMRI STUDY

Word comprehension tasks are known to be a reliable screening tool in identifying language deficits among Alzheimer's (AD) patients, and may be useful for individuals at an early risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, most neuroimaging studies which identified these language disrupt...

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Published inJournal of medical imaging and radiation sciences Vol. 54; no. 3; p. S19
Main Authors Afrina, Sallehuddin, Mazlyfarina, Mohamad, Neil, Russel Mennie, Mizhanim, Mohamad Shahimin, Rogayah, A Razak, Azmarul, A Aziz, Yang, Leong Yuh, Norshuhada, Sahnan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Inc 01.09.2023
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Summary:Word comprehension tasks are known to be a reliable screening tool in identifying language deficits among Alzheimer's (AD) patients, and may be useful for individuals at an early risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, most neuroimaging studies which identified these language disruptions have only focused on a single-modality approach. This study aims to investigate whether combining two modalities, fMRI and eye-tracking (ET) data during word comprehension tasks, can provide better accuracy in determining language performance among healthy cognitive aging (HCA) adults. Seven healthy, elderly subjects between the age of 50-70 years old were recruited within Klang Valley. During both task-based fMRI and eye-tracking, subjects engaged in a Malay word comprehension task consisting of object and action-categorized images. Subjects were instructed to select the image which best describes the word depicted. The fMRI data for brain region identification were analyzed using SPM12, followed by Gazepoint for eye-tracking data. Results showed activation in the medial temporal lobe and occipital gyrus area. For eye-tracking, higher saccadic regression, and irregular movements were identified in subjects who displayed weaker temporal activation whilst performing the task. Poorer performance scores in the word comprehension task were also linked to the same subjects. In conclusion, the combination of fMRI and eye-tracking data during word comprehension tasks may provide higher accuracy in language performance among elderly adults.
ISSN:1939-8654
DOI:10.1016/j.jmir.2023.06.066