A systematic review of the quantitative markers of speech and language of the frontotemporal degeneration spectrum and their potential for cross-linguistic implementation

Rosie Coppieters; Arabella Bouzigues; Lize Jiskoot; Maxime Montembeault; Boon Lead Tee; Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI); Jonathan D Rohrer; Rose Bruffaerts

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105909

A systematic review of the quantitative markers of speech and language of the frontotemporal degeneration spectrum and their potential for cross-linguistic implementation

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2024 Oct 10:167:105909. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105909. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Rosie Coppieters¹, Arabella Bouzigues², Lize Jiskoot³, Maxime Montembeault⁴, Boon Lead Tee⁵; Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI); Jonathan D Rohrer⁶, Rose Bruffaerts⁷

Affiliations

¹ Computational Neurology, Experimental Neurobiology Unit (ENU), Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium; VIB Center for Molecular Neurology, VIB, Antwerp, Belgium.
² Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK; Paris Brain Institute, Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
³ Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK; Department of Neurology, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
⁴ Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco USA.
⁵ Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco USA; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
⁶ Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK.
⁷ Computational Neurology, Experimental Neurobiology Unit (ENU), Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium; Department of Neurology, Antwerp University Hospital, Belgium; Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Belgium. Electronic address: rose.bruffaerts@uantwerpen.be.

PMID: 39393594
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105909

Abstract

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disease spectrum with an urgent need for reliable biomarkers for early diagnosis and monitoring. Speech and language changes occur in the early stages of FTD and offer a potential non-invasive, early, and accessible diagnostic tool. The use of speech and language markers in this disease spectrum is limited by the fact that most studies investigate English-speaking patients. This systematic review examines the literature on psychoacoustic and linguistic features of speech that occur across the FTD spectrum across as many different languages as possible. 76 papers were identified that investigate psychoacoustic and linguistic markers in discursive speech. 75 % of these papers studied English-speaking patients. The most generalizable features found across different languages, are speech rate, articulation rate, pause frequency, total pause duration, noun-verb ratio, and total number of nouns. While there are clear interlinguistic differences across patient groups, the results show promise for implementation of cross-linguistic markers of speech and language across the FTD spectrum particularly for psychoacoustic features.

Keywords: ALS-FTD; Biomarkers; CBS; FTD; Language; PPA; PSP; Speech.

Publication types

Review