ArticleBrain imaging and behavior2020
White matter disconnection is related to age-related phonological deficits.
Article in Brain imaging and behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Correlations between Dual-Pathway White Matter Alterations and Language Impairment in Patients with Aphasia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2021Pooled it
- Brain Segregation and Integration Relate to Word-Finding Abilities in Older and Younger Adults.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- The role of language-related functional brain regions and white matter tracts in network plasticity of post-stroke aphasia.Journal of neurology · 2024Review
- Multiple sclerosis is associated with differences in semantic memory structure.Neuropsychology · 2024Article
- Cerebral White Matter Mediation of Age-Related Differences in Picture Naming Across Adulthood.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2022Article
- Differences in Diffusion Tensor Imaging White Matter Integrity Related to Verbal Fluency Between Young and Old Adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Article
- Stronger right hemisphere functional connectivity supports executive aspects of language in older adults.Brain and language · 2020Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Older adults have more language production difficulties than younger adults but display largely comparable language comprehension abilities. The Transmission Deficit Hypothesis suggests that production difficulties stem from an age-related increase in phonological signal transmission failures, while the semantic system, being more redundant than the phonological system, allows comprehension to be relatively preserved despite signal failures. Though the neural instantiation of the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis remains an open question, white matter represents one important factor to investigate. Metrics indicative of white matter connectivity across the brain, namely, Radial Diffusivity (RD) and Fractional Anisotropy (FA) have also been linked to age-related cognitive differences including naming difficulties. Using a Picture-Word Interference (PWI) task with 18 younger and 19 older healthy adults, we found that, across ages, better picture naming in the presence of phonological distractors was associated with lower RD across dorsal (r = -.35, p = .03), ventral (r = -.34, p = .04), and fronto-striatal (r = -.33, p = .04) tracts, and higher FA along dorsal tracts (r = .43, p = .008). The pattern of lower RD and higher FA, which is thought to reflect better white matter structure, points to the dorsal stream tracts as critical for performance on the PWI task. Moreover, the effects of RD and FA on performance were attenuated by the effect of age, reflecting the shared variance between age and white matter as it relates to language production ability.
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