Metaphor comprehension in Alzheimer's disease: novelty matters

Abstract

The comprehension of non-literal language was investigated in 20 probable Alzheimer's disease (pAD) patients by comparing their performance to that of 20 matched control subjects. pAD patients were unimpaired in the comprehension of conventional metaphors and idioms. However, their performance was significantly lower in the case of non-conventional (novel) metaphor comprehension. This ability was not related to global cognitive deterioration or to deficits in the cognitive domains of attention, memory and language comprehension. On the other hand, the impairment in verbal reasoning appeared to be relevant for both novel and conventional metaphor comprehension. The relationship between novel metaphor comprehension and performance in the visual-spatial planning task of the Behavioral Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) suggests that executive impairment, possibly related to prefrontal dysfunction, may be responsible for the pAD patients' poor performance in novel metaphor comprehension. The present findings suggest a role of the prefrontal cortex in novel metaphor comprehension.