Is speech function lateralised in the basal ganglia? Evidence from de novo Parkinson's disease.

Background: Research on the possible influence of lateralised basal ganglia dysfunction on speech in Parkinson's disease is scarce. This study aimed to compare speech in de-novo, drug-naive patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with asymmetric nigral dopaminergic dysfunction, predominantly in either the right or left hemisphere.

Methods: Acoustic analyses of reading passages were performed.

Long-Term Averaged Spectrum Descriptors of Dysarthria in Patients With Parkinson's Disease Treated With Subthalamic Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate whether long-term averaged spectrum (LTAS) descriptors for reading and monologue are suitable to detect worsening of dysarthria in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) treated with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) with potential effect of ON and OFF stimulation conditions and types of connected speech.

Method: Four spectral moments based on LTAS were computed for monologue and reading passage collected from 23 individuals with PD treated with bilateral STN-DBS and 23 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Speech performance of patients with PD was compared in ON and OFF STN-DBS conditions.

Effect of reading passage length on quantitative acoustic speech assessment in Czech-speaking individuals with Parkinson's disease treated with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation.

Little is known about the minimum sample length required for the stable acoustic assessment of speech in Parkinson's disease (PD). This study aimed to investigate the effect of the duration of the reading passage on the determination of reliable acoustic patterns in individuals with PD treated with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation. A phonetically balanced reading text of 313 words was collected from 32 Czech persons with PD, and 32 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.

Comparison of Automated Acoustic Methods for Oral Diadochokinesis Assessment in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Purpose The purpose of this research note is to provide a performance comparison of available algorithms for the automated evaluation of oral diadochokinesis using speech samples from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Method Four different algorithms based on a wide range of signal processing approaches were tested on a sequential motion rate /pa/-/ta/-/ka/ syllable repetition paradigm collected from 18 patients with ALS and 18 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs). Results The best temporal detection of syllable position for a 10-ms tolerance value was achieved for ALS patients using a traditional signal processing approach based on a combination of filtering in the spectrogram, Bayesian detection, and polynomial thresholding with an accuracy rate of 74.

Instrumental analysis of finger tapping reveals a novel early biomarker of parkinsonism in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.

Background: Idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour (iRBD) is considered as a risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD) development. Evaluation of repetitive movements with finger tapping, which serves as a principal task to measure the extent of bradykinesia in PD, may undercover potential PD patients. The aim of this study was to explore whether finger tapping abnormalities, evaluated with a 3D motion capture system, are already present in RBD patients.