PROSODY DEFICITS IN BASAL GANGLIA DISORDERS - AN ACOUSTICAL ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC INTONATION

Studies conducted with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients have shown th at this basal ganglia pathology is often associated with speech motor control deficits, including prosody impairment. In this study, the rol e of basal ganglia in the production of linguistic intonation was inve stigated by comparing subjects presenting three motor syndromes PD, ta rdive dyskinesia (TD), and Huntington's disease (HD) to a group of con trol subjects. Measures of prosodic modulation were Delta F-0 values e xtracted from digitized intonative sentences produced under imitation and free production conditions (Auditory/Visual). Analyses revealed th at clinical subjects exhibit similar profiles of prosodic deficits in the Visual condition only. These results suggest that basal ganglia pl ay an important role in the spontaneous generation of internal models or strategies guiding movement sequences. Furthermore, it appears that some motor control impairment observed after BG dysfunction may refle ct critical and generalized deficits that may also affect cognitive fu nctions.