Publications by authors named "C Merck"
Healthy aging is characterized by frontal and diffuse brain changes, while certain age-related pathologies such as semantic dementia will be associated with more focal brain lesions, particularly in the temporo-parietal regions. These changes in structural integrity could influence functional brain networks. Here we use multilayer brain network analysis on structural (DWI) and functional (fMRI) data in younger and older healthy individuals and patients with semantic dementia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Some researchers and clinicians argue that the term "semantic dementia" needs revision or division into two distinct entities: semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and semantic behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia.
- The review explores whether it is still clinically relevant to use the term "semantic dementia" and the implications of potentially dividing it into verbal and socioemotional components.
- The focus is on understanding the nature of the knowledge affected in this disease to determine if a change in terminology is justified or if it is merely a theoretical consideration.
Background: People with neurodegenerative diseases may have difficulty learning new information, owing to their cognitive impairments. Teaching them techniques for learning in social contexts could alleviate this difficulty. The present study will examine the performances of patients with Alzheimer's disease and patients with the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia on a memory test administered in three social contexts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Semantic tool knowledge underlies the ability to perform activities of daily living. Models of apraxia have emphasized the role of functional knowledge about the action performed with tools (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study aimed to assess the effect of normal aging on the processing of taxonomic and thematic semantic relations.
Method: We used the Visual-World-Paradigm coupled with eye-movement recording. We compared performance of healthy younger and older adults on a word-to-picture matching task in which participants had to identify each target among semantically related (taxonomic or thematic) and unrelated distractors.