TY - JOUR
T1 - Language processing skills linked to FMR1 variation
T2 - A study of gaze-language coordination during rapid automatized naming among women with the FMR1 premutation
AU - Nayar, Kritika
AU - McKinney, Walker
AU - Hogan, Abigail L.
AU - Martin, Gary E.
AU - Valle, Chelsea La
AU - Sharp, Kevin
AU - Berry-Kravis, Elizabeth
AU - Norton, Elizabeth S.
AU - Gordon, Peter C.
AU - Losh, Molly
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01DC010191, R01MH091131, to ML; and P30 HD03110). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful to the individuals who participated in this study and to all the staff and students who assisted with data collection and processing.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Nayar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - The FMR1 premutation (PM) is relatively common in the general population. Evidence suggests that PM carriers may exhibit subtle differences in specific cognitive and language abilities. This study examined potential mechanisms underlying such differences through the study of gaze and language coordination during a language processing task (rapid automatized naming; RAN) among female carriers of the FMR1 PM. RAN taps a complex set of underlying neuropsychological mechanisms, with breakdowns implicating processing disruptions in fundamental skills that support higher order language and executive functions, making RAN (and analysis of gaze/language coordination during RAN) a potentially powerful paradigm for revealing the phenotypic expression of the FMR1 PM. Forty-eight PM carriers and 56 controls completed RAN on an eye tracker, where they serially named arrays of numbers, letters, colors, and objects. Findings revealed a pattern of inefficient language processing in the PM group, including a greater number of eye fixations (namely, visual regressions) and reduced eye-voice span (i.e., the eyes’ lead over the voice) relative to controls. Differences were driven by performance in the latter half of the RAN arrays, when working memory and processing load are the greatest, implicating executive skills. RAN deficits were associated with broader social-communicative difficulties among PM carriers, and with FMR1-related molecular genetic variation (higher CGG repeat length, lower activation ratio, and increased levels of the fragile X mental retardation protein; FMRP). Findings contribute to an understanding of the neurocognitive profile of PM carriers and indicate specific gene-behavior associations that implicate the role of the FMR1 gene in language-related processes.
AB - The FMR1 premutation (PM) is relatively common in the general population. Evidence suggests that PM carriers may exhibit subtle differences in specific cognitive and language abilities. This study examined potential mechanisms underlying such differences through the study of gaze and language coordination during a language processing task (rapid automatized naming; RAN) among female carriers of the FMR1 PM. RAN taps a complex set of underlying neuropsychological mechanisms, with breakdowns implicating processing disruptions in fundamental skills that support higher order language and executive functions, making RAN (and analysis of gaze/language coordination during RAN) a potentially powerful paradigm for revealing the phenotypic expression of the FMR1 PM. Forty-eight PM carriers and 56 controls completed RAN on an eye tracker, where they serially named arrays of numbers, letters, colors, and objects. Findings revealed a pattern of inefficient language processing in the PM group, including a greater number of eye fixations (namely, visual regressions) and reduced eye-voice span (i.e., the eyes’ lead over the voice) relative to controls. Differences were driven by performance in the latter half of the RAN arrays, when working memory and processing load are the greatest, implicating executive skills. RAN deficits were associated with broader social-communicative difficulties among PM carriers, and with FMR1-related molecular genetic variation (higher CGG repeat length, lower activation ratio, and increased levels of the fragile X mental retardation protein; FMRP). Findings contribute to an understanding of the neurocognitive profile of PM carriers and indicate specific gene-behavior associations that implicate the role of the FMR1 gene in language-related processes.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0219924
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0219924
M3 - Article
C2 - 31348790
AN - SCOPUS:85070089828
VL - 14
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 7
M1 - e0219924
ER -