HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER		Author Keyword(s) Vol Page [Advanced]

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this link to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Add article to my folders Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zanini, S Articles by Fabbro, F Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zanini, S Articles by Fabbro, F

Greater syntactic impairments in native language in bilingual Parkinsonian patients

¹ Department of Physiology and Pathology, University of Trieste, Italy
² IRCCS "E. Medea", S. Vito al Tagliamento and University of Udine, Udine, Italy
³ Regional Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Udine, Italy
⁴ Department of Neurology-Neurophysiopathology, Civil Hospital, Udine, Italy
⁵ Department of Psychology, University "La Sapienza" and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Zanini
Department of Physiology and Pathology, University of Trieste, Via Fleming 22, 34127 Trieste, Italy; zanini{at}sissa.it

Objective: To investigate the presence of syntactic impairments in native language in Parkinson’s disease.

Methods: Twelve bilingual patients, with Friulian as their first language (L1) and Italian as their second (L2), with Parkinson’s disease and 12 normal controls matched for age, sex, and years of schooling, were studied on three syntactic tasks.

Results: Patients with Parkinson’s disease showed a greater impairment of L1 than L2.

Conclusions: These findings provide evidence of greater basal ganglia involvement in the acquisition and further processing of grammar in L1 v L2 possibly due to a major involvement of procedural memory in representing L1 grammar.

Abbreviations: BAT, Bilingual Aphasia Test; MMSE, Mini Mental State Examination; PD, Parkinson’s disease; WCST, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Keywords: basal ganglia; bilingualism; Parkinson’s disease; syntax

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A Garcia-Caballero, I Garcia-Lado, J Gonzalez-Hermida, R Area, M J Recimil, O Juncos Rabadan, S Lamas, G Ozaita, and F J Jorge Paradoxical recovery in a bilingual patient with aphasia after right capsuloputaminal infarction J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, January 1, 2007; 78(1): 89 - 91. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]