Event Related Potentials during the Boston Naming Task, and their Changes in ALS (Conference Poster)

About

This poster was presented at the 2024 BrainBox Initiative conference in London. It is based on work from my bachelor’s thesis on language impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

You can view the poster on the BBI 2024 or McMackin lab websites.

Link to PDF.

Abstract

Background

• ALS: a chronic, terminal neurodegenerative disease, causing progressive paralysis and death within 3-5 years.
• Language impairment is common in ALS, and is associated with worse outcomes, e.g., shorter survival.
• The Boston Naming Test (BNT) is an picture naming test on which many people with ALS show impairments.
• Biomarkers for improved diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring are needed for improved treatment/clinical trials
• We used electroencephalography (EEG) to record neural activity during a language task.
• Advantages over other measures (e.g., fMRI)
  • Directly measures neural activity
  • Low cost
  • High temporal resolution

Aims

• To investigate whether event related potentials (ERPs) can be detected during the BNT.
• To see whether people with ALS display abnormalities in these ERPs, and whether this relates to language function