Right ventral stream damage underlies both poststroke aprosodia and amusia

Aleksi J. Sihvonen, Daniela Sammler, Pablo Ripollés, Vera Leo, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, Seppo Soinila, Teppo Särkämö

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background and purpose: This study was undertaken to determine and compare lesion patterns and structural dysconnectivity underlying poststroke aprosodia and amusia, using a data-driven multimodal neuroimaging approach. Methods: Thirty-nine patients with right or left hemisphere stroke were enrolled in a cohort study and tested for linguistic and affective prosody perception and musical pitch and rhythm perception at subacute and 3-month poststroke stages. Participants listened to words spoken with different prosodic stress that changed their meaning, and to words spoken with six different emotions, and chose which meaning or emotion was expressed. In the music tasks, participants judged pairs of short melodies as the same or different in terms of pitch or rhythm. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired at both stages, and machine learning-based lesion–symptom mapping and deterministic tractography were used to identify lesion patterns and damaged white matter pathways giving rise to aprosodia and amusia. Results: Both aprosodia and amusia were behaviorally strongly correlated and associated with similar lesion patterns in right frontoinsular and striatal areas. In multiple regression models, reduced fractional anisotropy and lower tract volume of the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus were the strongest predictors for both disorders, over time. Conclusions: These results highlight a common origin of aprosodia and amusia, both arising from damage and disconnection of the right ventral auditory stream integrating rhythmic–melodic acoustic information in prosody and music. Comorbidity of these disabilities may worsen the prognosis and affect rehabilitation success.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)873-882
Number of pages10
JournalEuropean Journal of Neurology
Volume29
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2022

Keywords

  • amusia
  • aprosodia
  • lesion–symptom mapping
  • stroke
  • tractography

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Neurology
  • Clinical Neurology

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