Action (verb) generation in HIV-1 infection

It has been proposed that verb generation is primarily associated with left fronto-basal ganglia circuits, whereas the generation of nouns is principally mediated by dominant left temporo-parietal networks. Consistent with this premise, action (verb) fluency - a verbal fluency task requiring the spontaneous generation of verbs - has shown greater sensitivity to frontal-basal ganglia pathophysiology (e.g., dementia in Parkinson's disease (PDD)) than noun fluency. The present study examined action and noun fluency in persons with HIV-1 infection-a disease known to be associated with a frontal-basal ganglia circuit neuropathogenesis. Action and noun (“animals”) verbal fluency protocols were administered to 97 persons with HIV-1 infection and 20 demographically comparable healthy comparison (HC) subjects. A significant interaction emerged between verbal fluency task and HIV-1 serostatus such that the HIV+ group generated significantly fewer actions (verbs) relative to the HC sample. Findings indicate that persons infected with HIV-1 experience difficulty rapidly generating verbs, but not nouns from semantic memory. Considering the prominent frontal-basal ganglia circuit neuropathophysiology of HIV-1 infection, these data are consistent with the hypothesized dissociation between noun and verb generation as pertains to generative fluency.