Restoration of conceptual knowledge in a case of semantic dementia

Abstract

Patients with semantic dementia (SD) may undergo successful relearning of object names, but these gains are usually restricted to the trained exemplars, demonstrating poor generalization. We hypothesized that generalization could be improved by restoring an item's semantic network through specific strategies that recruit the remaining personal semantic memories (conceptual enrichment therapies). We describe the case of a patient with SD who showed greater generalization of learning following a conceptual enrichment therapy than when learning items in a word-retrieval therapy. Our results suggest that enhancing an item's semantic network connections may result in improved generalization of learning in SD. A learning mechanism in the presence of compromised hippocampi is also discussed.