Apraxia of speech and cerebellar mutism syndrome: a case study

Background Cerebellar mutism syndrome (CMS) or posterior fossa syndrome (PFS) consists of a constellation of neuropsychiatric, neuropsychological and neurogenic speech and language deficits. It is most commonly observed in children after posterior fossa tumor surgery. The most prominent feature of CMS is mutism, which generally starts after a few days after the operation, has a limited duration and is typically followed by motor speech deficits. However, the core speech disorder subserving CMS is still unclear. Case presentation This study investigates the speech and language symptoms following posterior fossa medulloblastoma surgery in a 12-year-old right-handed boy. An extensive battery of formal speech (DIAS = Diagnostic Instrument Apraxia of Speech) and language tests were administered during a follow-up of 6 weeks after surgery. Although the neurological and neuropsychological (affective, cognitive) symptoms of this patient are consistent with Schmahmann’s syndrome, the speech and language symptoms were markedly different from what is typically described in the literature. In-depth analyses of speech production revealed features consistent with a diagnosis of apraxia of speech (AoS) while ataxic dysarthria was completely absent. In addition, language assessments showed genuine aphasic deficits as reflected by distorted language production and perception, wordfinding difficulties, grammatical disturbances and verbal fluency deficits. Conclusion To the best of our knowledge this case might be the first example that clearly demonstrates that a higher level motor planning disorder (apraxia) may be the origin of disrupted speech in CMS. In addition, identification of non-motor linguistic disturbances during follow-up add to the view that the cerebellum not only plays a crucial role in the planning and execution of speech but also in linguistic processing. Whether the cerebellum has a direct or indirect role in motor speech planning needs to be further investigated

Segmentation of coronal features to understand the solar EUV and UV irradiance variability

International audienceContext. The study of solar irradiance variability is of great importance in heliophysics, the Earth’s climate, and space weather applications. These studies require careful identifying, tracking and monitoring of active regions (ARs), coronal holes (CHs), and the quiet Sun (QS).Aims. We studied the variability of solar irradiance for a period of two years (January 2011–December 2012) using the Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA), the Sun Watcher using APS and image Processing (SWAP) on board PROBA2, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).Methods. We used the spatial possibilistic clustering algorithm (SPoCA) to identify and segment coronal features from the EUV observations of AIA. The AIA segmentation maps were then applied on SWAP images, and parameters such as the intensity, fractional area, and contribution of ARs/CHs/QS features were computed and compared with the full-disk integrated intensity and LYRA irradiance measurements.Results. We report the results obtained from SDO/AIA and PROBA2/SWAP images taken from January 2011 to December 2012 and compare the resulting integrated full-disk intensity with PROBA2/LYRA irradiance. We determine the contributions of the segmented features to EUV and UV irradiance variations. The variations of the parameters resulting from the segmentation, namely the area, integrated intensity, and relative contribution to the solar irradiance, are compared with LYRA irradiance. We find that the active regions have a great impact on the irradiance fluctuations. In the EUV passbands considered in this study, the QS is the greatest contributor to the solar irradiance, with up to 63% of total intensity values. Active regions, on the other hand, contribute to about 10%, and off-limb structures to about 24%. We also find that the area of the features is highly variable suggesting that their area has to be taken into account in irradiance models, in addition to their intensity variations.Conclusions. We successfully show that the feature extraction allows us to use EUV telescopes to measure irradiance fluctuations and to quantify the contribution of each part to the EUV spectral solar irradiance observed with a calibrated radiometer. This study also shows that SPoCA is viable, and that the segmentation of images can be a useful tool. We also provide the measurement correlation between SWAP and AIA during this analysis

Segmentation of coronal features to understand the solar EUV and UV irradiance variability

Context. The study of solar irradiance variability is of great importance in heliophysics, the Earth’s climate, and space weather applications. These studies require careful identifying, tracking and monitoring of active regions (ARs), coronal holes (CHs), and the quiet Sun (QS). Aims. We studied the variability of solar irradiance for a period of two years (January 2011–December 2012) using the Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA), the Sun Watcher using APS and image Processing (SWAP) on board PROBA2, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Methods. We used the spatial possibilistic clustering algorithm (SPoCA) to identify and segment coronal features from the EUV observations of AIA. The AIA segmentation maps were then applied on SWAP images, and parameters such as the intensity, fractional area, and contribution of ARs/CHs/QS features were computed and compared with the full-disk integrated intensity and LYRA irradiance measurements. Results. We report the results obtained from SDO/AIA and PROBA2/SWAP images taken from January 2011 to December 2012 and compare the resulting integrated full-disk intensity with PROBA2/LYRA irradiance. We determine the contributions of the segmented features to EUV and UV irradiance variations. The variations of the parameters resulting from the segmentation, namely the area, integrated intensity, and relative contribution to the solar irradiance, are compared with LYRA irradiance. We find that the active regions have a great impact on the irradiance fluctuations. In the EUV passbands considered in this study, the QS is the greatest contributor to the solar irradiance, with up to 63% of total intensity values. Active regions, on the other hand, contribute to about 10%, and off-limb structures to about 24%. We also find that the area of the features is highly variable suggesting that their area has to be taken into account in irradiance models, in addition to their intensity variations. Conclusions. We successfully show that the feature extraction allows us to use EUV telescopes to measure irradiance fluctuations and to quantify the contribution of each part to the EUV spectral solar irradiance observed with a calibrated radiometer. This study also shows that SPoCA is viable, and that the segmentation of images can be a useful tool. We also provide the measurement correlation between SWAP and AIA during this analysis