On April 13th 2017, a special lecture addressing the effects of neurological damage on the naming of actions and objects was given by Dr. Bonnie Breining at Johns Hopkins University. The lecture is a part of the C-Star Lecture Series offered by the Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery. You can view a recording of the lecture here (or on the C-Star YouTube channel).
Deficits in Action and Object Naming: Evidence from Acute Stroke and Primary Progressive Aphasia
Neurological damage can result in selective deficits of naming for both objects and actions. However, assessment of individuals with aphasia often focuses on object naming, making it insensitive for detecting certain language deficits and patterns of recovery or worsening, as well as providing an incomplete view of the neural regions involved in naming. Furthermore, although dissociations have been observed both following stroke and as a result of neurodegenerative conditions such as primary progressive aphasia (PPA), results from the different etiologies are seldom compared directly.
In this talk, I discuss recent work investigating the neural substrates of object and action naming. Individuals with PPA and acute stroke were given the same assessments: the Boston Naming Test to evaluate object naming and the Hopkins Action Naming Assessment to evaluate action naming. We compare the patterns of impairment and the association between behavioral performance and damage to neural regions of interest in these individuals in order to develop a more comprehensive picture of the brain-behavior relationships critical for naming.