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An overview on Primary Progressive Aphasia and its variants
Amici S, Gorno-Tempini ML, Ogar JM, Dronkers NF, Miller BL.. Behavioural neurology, 2006-01-01
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
We present a review of the literature on Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) together with the analysis of neuropschychological and neuroradiologic profiles of 42 PPA patients. Mesulam originally defined PPA as a progressive degenerative disorder characterized by isolated language impairment for at least two years. The most common variants of PPA are: 1) Progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), 2) semantic dementia (SD), 3) logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA). PNFA is characterized by labored speech, agrammatism in production, and/or comprehension. In some cases the syndrome begins with isolated deficits in speech. SD patients typically present with loss of word and object meaning and surface dyslexia. LPA patients have word-finding difficulties, syntactically simple but accurate language output and impaired sentence comprehension. The neuropsychological data demonstrated that SD patients show the most characteristic pattern of impairment, while PNFA and LPA overlap within many cognitive domains. The neuroimaging analysis showed left perisylvian region involvement. A comprehensive cognitive, neuroimaging and pathological approach is necessary to identify the clinical and pathogenetic features of different PPA variants.
Key findings
- The neuropsychological data demonstrated that SD patients show the most characteristic pattern of impairment, while PNFA and LPA overlap within many cognitive domains.
Why it matters
This review describes language variants of primary progressive aphasia and their cognitive and imaging features, but it reports no treatment, cure, or prevention. It supports better clinical and pathological characterization of these variants rather than any therapy.
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Study details
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 44/100
Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Scored zero for study design, sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 7 / 10 | Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (Behavioural neurology) |
| Journal's citation record | 1 / 4 | Behavioural Neurology: journal h-index 80 (OpenAlex, 2026-10-29) |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 1 / 5 | 2006 — older than 20 years, still counted |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 4 / 7 | Cited 78 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 2 / 5 | 3.5 citations a year over 22 year(s) since 2006 |
| Impact for its field and year | 3 / 6 | Cited 3.3× the average for papers of its field and year (OpenAlex FWCI) |
| Cited by studies here | 2 / 6 | Cited by 6 other studies in this library |
| Still being cited | 1 / 4 | Cited 7 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 4 / 4 | Last-listed author Bruce L. Miller: h-index 198 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University of California, San Francisco: institution h-index 1,915 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 4 institution(s) in 2 countries |
| Indexed in PubMed | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 16873918) |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Total | 44 / 100 | — |
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Read the original
Full text: free to read — OpenAlex lists this copy as free to read: the link above (checked 6 Feb 1020).
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Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
APA 7th
Amici, S., Gorno-Tempini, M. L., Ogar, J. M., Dronkers, N. F., & Miller, B. L. (2006). An overview on Primary Progressive Aphasia and its variants. Behavioural neurology. https://doi.org/10.1155/2006/260734
Vancouver
Amici S, Gorno-Tempini ML, Ogar JM, Dronkers NF, Miller BL. An overview on Primary Progressive Aphasia and its variants. Behavioural neurology. 2006. doi:10.1155/2006/260734. PMID: 16873918.
BibTeX
@article{amici2006-16873918,
author = {Amici, S. and Gorno-Tempini, M. L. and Ogar, J. M. and Dronkers, N. F. and Miller, B. L.},
title = {{An overview on Primary Progressive Aphasia and its variants}},
journal = {Behavioural neurology},
year = {2006},
doi = {10.1155/2006/260734},
pmid = {16873918},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1155/2006/260734}
}
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