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06-03-2024 | Apraxia | Review

The Neurocognitive Bases of Meaningful Intransitive Gestures: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Neuropsychological Studies

Authors: Josselin Baumard, Alice Laniepce, Mathieu Lesourd, Léna Guezouli, Virginie Beaucousin, Maureen Gehin, François Osiurak, Angela Bartolo

Published in: Neuropsychology Review

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Abstract

Researchers and clinicians have long used meaningful intransitive (i.e., not tool-related; MFI) gestures to assess apraxia—a complex and frequent motor-cognitive disorder. Nevertheless, the neurocognitive bases of these gestures remain incompletely understood. Models of apraxia have assumed that meaningful intransitive gestures depend on either long-term memory (i.e., semantic memory and action lexicons) stored in the left hemisphere, or social cognition and the right hemisphere. This meta-analysis of 42 studies reports the performance of 2659 patients with either left or right hemisphere damage in tests of meaningful intransitive gestures, as compared to other gestures (i.e., MFT or meaningful transitive and MLI or meaningless intransitive) and cognitive tests. The key findings are as follows: (1) deficits of meaningful intransitive gestures are more frequent and severe after left than right hemisphere lesions, but they have been reported in both groups; (2) we found a transitivity effect in patients with lesions of the left hemisphere (i.e., meaningful transitive gestures more difficult than meaningful intransitive gestures) but a “reverse” transitivity effect in patients with lesions of the right hemisphere (i.e., meaningful transitive gestures easier than meaningful intransitive gestures); (3) there is a strong association between meaningful intransitive and transitive (but not meaningless) gestures; (4) isolated deficits of meaningful intransitive gestures are more frequent in cases with right than left hemisphere lesions; (5) these deficits may occur in the absence of language and semantic memory impairments; (6) meaningful intransitive gesture performance seems to vary according to the emotional content of gestures (i.e., body-centered gestures and emotional valence-intensity). These findings are partially consistent with the social cognition hypothesis. Methodological recommendations are given for future studies.
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Footnotes
1
Cut-off scores for these tests were not available in Mengotti et al.’s study. We used cut-off scores of Quental et al. (2013) and Gamboz et al. (2009), allowing to control for age and culture.
 
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Metadata
Title
The Neurocognitive Bases of Meaningful Intransitive Gestures: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Neuropsychological Studies
Authors
Josselin Baumard
Alice Laniepce
Mathieu Lesourd
Léna Guezouli
Virginie Beaucousin
Maureen Gehin
François Osiurak
Angela Bartolo
Publication date
06-03-2024
Publisher
Springer US
Keyword
Apraxia
Published in
Neuropsychology Review
Print ISSN: 1040-7308
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6660
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11065-024-09634-6