Approximately half of the patients with muscular atrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have a jukujikun with two or more Chinese characters such as "countryside" and "yesterday". Research groups such as Nagoya University and Fujita Medical University have revealed that it is difficult to read aloud (jukujikun) that does not correspond to the general reading of each Chinese character that composes.
ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that causes motor paralysis and muscular atrophy, but in recent years it has been reported that not only motor injuries but also higher brain functions such as language may be impaired.
When you think of reading a jukugo, the meaning can help, so if you have a semantic memory disorder, reading aloud the jukujikun is likely to be impaired.Therefore, in this study, we examined verbal symptoms in ALS from the viewpoint of reading aloud jukujikun and impaired semantic memory, and attempted to clarify the changes in the brain associated with the symptoms using MRI examination.
Higher brain function tests, including a jukujikun reading test, were performed on 71 ALS patients and 68 healthy subjects, and the results of the jukujikun reading test were significantly lower in the ALS group than in the healthy group.Therefore, we investigated network changes in the brain related to ALS jukujikun reading disorder using resting brain function MRI. Compared to healthy people, it was found that the neural network in the brain that connects areas related to cognition of things and shapes, memory of the meaning of things, speech, etc. was weakened.
In this study, it was clarified for the first time that jukujikun reading disorder may appear in ALS and semantic memory may be impaired, and that the brain network abnormality that causes reading disorder of jukugo is also clarified for the first time.This result is an important example showing that neurological symptoms can be understood in the form of changes in the network in the brain, and is thought to bring about a new understanding of the pathophysiology of neurological symptoms.
Paper information:[EBioMedicine] Semantic deficits in ALS related to right lingual / fusiform gyrus network involvement
