Evidence of Preserved Function in Semantic Dementia
Abstract
This narrative review examined clinical assessments and empirical research on semantic dementia to understand the nature of preserved semantic function alongside impairment across different disease stages. The first section describes the clinical characteristics, staging, and diagnosis of semantic dementia, and concludes by summarizing the implications of these characterization differences. The next section presents a collection of studies with tasks specifically designed to explore spared semantic processing in semantic dementia. The final section synthesizes and discusses these findings and their utility in leveraging remaining cognitive processing. We conclude that a complete and accurate clinical picture of semantic dementia, and an understanding of semantic memory more generally, requires considering both impaired and spared aspects of conceptual processing and relevant cognitive functions that support semantic memory. The findings summarized in this review will be useful to researchers and clinicians interested in episodic and semantic memory.
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BibTeX
@misc{mckenzie2026evidence,
title = {{Evidence of Preserved Function in Semantic Dementia}},
author = {Chelsea-Leigh Marie McKenzie and Melissa Meade and Marieke Mur and John Paul Minda and Stefan Kohler},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/94cjh_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/94cjh_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Evidence of Preserved Function in Semantic Dementia
AU - Chelsea-Leigh Marie McKenzie
AU - Melissa Meade
AU - Marieke Mur
AU - John Paul Minda
AU - Stefan Kohler
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/19
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/94cjh_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/94cjh_v1/
AB - This narrative review examined clinical assessments and empirical research on semantic dementia to understand the nature of preserved semantic function alongside impairment across different disease stages. The first section describes the clinical characteristics, staging, and diagnosis of semantic dementia, and concludes by summarizing the implications of these characterization differences. The next section presents a collection of studies with tasks specifically designed to explore spared semantic processing in semantic dementia. The final section synthesizes and discusses these findings and their utility in leveraging remaining cognitive processing. We conclude that a complete and accurate clinical picture of semantic dementia, and an understanding of semantic memory more generally, requires considering both impaired and spared aspects of conceptual processing and relevant cognitive functions that support semantic memory. The findings summarized in this review will be useful to researchers and clinicians interested in episodic and semantic memory.
ER -