Logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA) is a variant of

primary progressive aphasia Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a type of neurological syndrome in which language capabilities slowly and progressively become impaired. As with other types of aphasia, the symptoms that accompany PPA depend on what parts of the left hemisph ...

. It is defined clinically by impairments in naming and sentence repetition. It is similar to

conduction aphasia Conduction aphasia, also called associative aphasia, is an uncommon form of difficulty in speaking (aphasia). It is caused by damage to the parietal lobe of the brain. An acquired language disorder, it is characterised by intact auditory comprehe ...

and is associated with

atrophy Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations (which can destroy the gene to build up the organ), poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply t ...

to the left posterior

temporal cortex The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in proc ...

and

inferior parietal lobule The inferior parietal lobule (subparietal district) lies below the horizontal portion of the intraparietal sulcus, and behind the lower part of the postcentral sulcus. Also known as Geschwind's territory after Norman Geschwind, an American neurolo ...

. It is suspected that an atypical form of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

is the most common cause of logopenic progressive aphasia. Although patients with the logopenic variant of PPA are still able to produce speech, their speech rate may be significantly slowed due to word retrieval difficulty. Over time, they may experience the inability to retain lengthy information, causing problems with understanding complex verbal information.UCSF Memory and Aging Center. (2011, February 22). SF: The Regents of the University of California. Retrieved December 5, 2011 from http://memory.ucsf.edu/education/diseases/ppa Some additional behavioral features include irritability, anxiety and agitation. Compared to other subtypes of primary progressive aphasia, the logopenic variant has been found to be associated with cognitive and behavioral characteristics. Studies have shown that patients with the logopenic variant perform significantly worse on tests of calculation than other primary progressive aphasia patients. Several logopenic variant patients, especially those with Alzheimer's disease pathology, have also been found to perform poorly on memory tasks. Logopenic progressive aphasia is caused by damage to segregated brain regions, specifically the inferior parietal lobe and superior temporal regions. Difficulties in naming are produced from the thinning of the inferior parietal lobe. Damage to the dorsal pathways creates language deficiency in patients that is characteristic of logopenic progressive aphasia.

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