Author name cluster

Georg Goldenberg

Possible papers associated with this exact author name in Arrow. This page groups case-insensitive exact name matches and is not a full identity disambiguation profile.

5 papers

1 author row

YNICL Journal 2018 Journal Article

It takes two to pantomime: Communication meets motor cognition

Lisa Finkel
Katharina Hogrefe
Scott H. Frey
Georg Goldenberg
Jennifer Randerath

For over a century, pantomime of tool use has been employed to diagnose limb apraxia, a disorder of motor cognition primarily induced by left brain damage. While research consistently implicates damage to a left fronto-temporo-parietal network in limb apraxia, findings are inconsistent regarding the impact of damage to anterior versus posterior nodes within this network on pantomime. Complicating matters is the fact that tool use pantomime can be affected and evaluated at multiple levels. For instance, the production of tool use gestures requires the consideration of semantic characteristics (e.g. how to communicate the action intention) as well as motor features (e.g. forming grip and movement). Together, these factors may contribute substantially to apparent discrepancies in previously reported findings regarding neural correlates of tool use pantomime. In the current study, 67 stroke patients with unilateral left-brain damage performed a classic pantomime task. In order to analyze different error characteristics, we evaluated the proper use of grip and movement for each pantomime. For certain objects, healthy subjects may use body parts as representative for the object, e.g. use of the fingers to indicate scissors blades. To specify the pathological use of body parts as the object (BPO) we only assessed pantomime items that were not prone to this response in healthy participants. We performed modern voxel-based lesion analyses on MRI or CT data to determine associations between brain injury and the frequency of the specific types of pantomime errors. Our results support a model in which anterior and posterior nodes of the left fronto-temporo-parietal network contribute differentially to pantomime of tool use. More precisely, damage in the inferior frontal cortex reaching to the temporal pole is associated with an increased frequency of BPO errors, whereas damage to the inferior parietal lobe is predominantly linked to an increased frequency of movement and/or grip errors. Our work suggests that the validity of attempts to specify the neural correlates of limb apraxia based on tool use pantomime depends on differentiating the specific types of errors committed. We conclude that successful tool use pantomime involves dissociable functions with communicative aspects represented in more anterior (rather ventral) regions and motor-cognitive aspects in more posterior (rather dorsal) nodes of a left fronto-temporo-parietal network.

Details DOI

YNIMG Journal 2015 Journal Article

The ventral fiber pathway for pantomime of object use

Magnus-Sebastian Vry
Linda C. Tritschler
Farsin Hamzei
Michel Rijntjes
Christoph P. Kaller
Markus Hoeren
Roza Umarova
Volkmar Glauche

The current concept of a dual loop system of brain organization predicts a domain-general dual-pathway architecture involving dorsal and ventral fiber connections. We investigated if a similar dichotomy of brain network organization applies for pantomime (P) and imitation of meaningless gestures (I). Impairments of these tasks occur after left hemispheric brain lesions causing apraxia. Isolated impairments and double-dissociations point towards an anatomical segregation. Frontal and parietal areas seem to contribute differently. A special role of the inferior frontal gyrus and underlying fiber pathways was suggested recently. Using a combined fMRI/DTI-approach, we compared the fiber pathway architecture of left hemispheric frontal, temporal and parietal network components of pantomime and imitation. Thereby, we separated object effects from pantomime-specific effects. P and I both engage a fronto-temporo-parietal network of cortical areas interconnected by a dorsal fiber system (superior longitudinal fascicle) for direct sensory–motor interactions. The pantomime-specific effect additionally involved the triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus, the inferior parietal cortex and the intraparietal sulcus, interconnected by ventral fibers of the extreme capsule, likely related to higher-order conceptual and semantic operations. We discuss this finding in the context of the dual loop model and recent anatomical concepts.

Details DOI

YNIMG Journal 2010 Journal Article

Different left brain regions are essential for grasping a tool compared with its subsequent use

Jennifer Randerath
Georg Goldenberg
Will Spijkers
Yong Li
Joachim Hermsdörfer

Tool use engages a left hemispheric network including frontal, temporal and parietal regions. Patients with left brain lesions (LBD patients) exhibit deficits when demonstrating use of a single tool (apraxia). When attempting to use a tool, some apraxic patients show errors in the preceding grasping movement. Forty-two LBD patients and 18 healthy controls grasped individual tools and demonstrated their typical use. For patients with a tool use impairment (22), lesion analysis revealed a large area of overlap in the left hemisphere, mainly in the supramarginal gyrus (SMG). For patients with erroneous grasping (12), the lesion overlay showed overlaps in the left frontal and parietal cortices, especially in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the angular gyrus (ANG). However, contrasting lesions associated with impaired grasping versus tool use impairments reveal little overlap, limited to the inferior parietal cortex. Presumably the left IFG is involved in selection processes in the context of tool use, such as choosing a functional or non-functional grasping movement depending on the task and the online information about the tool's structure and orientation. The ANG might provide this grasp related information, which is relevant for the specific action. The contribution of the SMG to tool use involves more general principals, such as integrating online and learned tool use information into the action plan for the use movement.

Details DOI

YNIMG Journal 2003 Journal Article

Pantomime of object use: a challenge to cerebral localization of cognitive function

Georg Goldenberg

The paper illustrates difficulties and insecurities of localizing cognitive functions with the example of pantomime of object use. Numerous studies have established a particular sensitivity of this task to left brain damage (LBD), but there is no agreement as to how components of its cognitive architecture are related to the laterality and intrahemispheric location of responsible lesions. Apraxia and asymbolia have been suspected to be crucial for explaining the vulnerability of pantomime to LBD, but analysis of correlations between impairments of pantomime, imitation of gestures, drawing from memory, and language in patients with LBD and aphasia suggests that neither of these putative deficits can adequately account for the data. It rather appears that pantomime taps a central aspect of left hemisphere function which affects performance on a great number of otherwise widely different tasks and which is not bound to any particular location within the hemisphere. I discuss ways to resolve apparent conflicts between this interpretation and the findings of double dissociations between pantomime and imitation in clinical case studies and of circumscribed left parietal activation during pantomime in functional neuroimaging.

Details DOI

YNIMG Journal 2001 Journal Article

Imitation and Matching of Hand and Finger Postures

Georg Goldenberg

Converging evidence from patients with unilateral brain lesions, from a patient with callosal disconnection, and from functional imaging in healthy subjects suggests different competencies of both hemispheres for imitation and matching of hand and finger postures. Whereas the left hemisphere is fully competent for processing hand postures, an additional right hemisphere contribution is needed for finger postures. I propose that the left hemisphere is responsible for coding gestures with reference to knowledge about the structure of the human body, whereas a right hemisphere contribution is needed for visuospatial exploration and analysis of gestures. Single case studies of patients with visuoimitative apraxia and results of functional imaging suggest a prominent role for left area 40 for body-part coding. Additional activation of left MT/V5 in the functional neuroimaging study may be related to processing of the motion implied by the gesture which is presented as a static image.

Details DOI