Assessing Differences in Articulatory-Acoustic Vowel Space in Parkinson’s Disease by Sex and Phenotype

The goal of this study was to determine whether articulatoryacoustics differ between individuals in the tremor-dominant (TD) and postural instability/gait difficulty (PIGD) phenotypes of Parkinson's disease (PD). The study included 31 individuals with PD (21 TD, 10 PIGD) and 29 control speakers (CS) who were all Dutch native speakers. A read speech task and a semi-spontaneous speech task were completed, and the Articulatory-Acoustic Vowel Space (AAVS) was calculated for both tasks. Results showed no significant difference in AAVS between the overall control group and PD for either phenotype. Follow-up analyses, pooling speech data from our prior study (+27 PD, +23 CS), demonstrated a significantly lower AAVS in males with PD compared to controls and no group differences for females. Thus, articulatory-acoustic changes may be more pronounced for male compared to female speakers with PD, but may not differ by PD phenotype.