Cerebellar Stimulation for Aphasia Rehabilitation
Johns Hopkins University
Summary
The optimal site of neuromodulation for post-stroke aphasia has yet to be established. This study will investigate whether multiple sessions of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) boosts language therapy in helping people recover from aphasia as well as predict who is likely to respond to cerebellar tDCS.
Description
Aphasia is a devastating complication of stroke. Speech and language treatment (SLT) can be helpful in restoring language function, but not all individuals show improvement. Recent studies indicate that Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a promising adjuvant approach to enhance the effectiveness of SLT. tDCS is a noninvasive, non-painful, electrical stimulation of the brain. It is believed that tDCS boosts neural plasticity that underlies recovery with SLT. A majority of the tDCS studies of aphasia have stimulated the left hemisphere regions. However, left hemisphere lesions com…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–99 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Chronic ischemic or hemorrhagic left hemisphere stroke * Fluent speaker of English by self-report * Age 18 or older * 6 months post onset of stroke * Diagnosis of aphasia and naming impairment using the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised Exclusion Criteria: * Lesion in the right cerebellum * Previous neurological disorder (other than stroke) affecting the brain, or any other neurodegenerative disorder or psychiatric disorder * Seizures during the previous 6 months * Uncorrected visual loss or hearing loss by self-report * Use of medications that lower the seizure threshol…
Interventions
- DeviceCathodal Cerebellar tDCS
2 mA of cathodal tDCS is induced between two 5cm X 5cm saline soaked sponges where the cathode sponge is placed on the right cerebellum. Ramping up of the current to 2 mA occurs over 15-30 seconds to allow participants to habituate to the tingling sensation. The stimulation will be delivered at an intensity of 2 mA for a maximum of 25 minutes.
- BehavioralSemantic Feature Analysis (SFA)
Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) is a treatment technique designed to improve lexical retrieval by increasing the level of activation within a semantic network. The treatment will proceed according to a series of steps including naming aloud the target picture, generating semantic features, naming aloud the target picture again, and generating a sentence using the target word.
- DeviceSham
2 mA of cathodal tDCS is induced between two 5cm X 5cm saline soaked sponges where the cathode sponge is placed on the right cerebellum. Ramping up of the current to 2 mA occurs over 15-30 seconds to allow participants to habituate to the tingling sensation. Then, the current will be ramped back down to 0 mA in the sham condition. Termination of the stimulation after the ramping up process is generally undetectable, and the brief duration of stimulation yields no functional effects.
Location
- Johns Hopkins HospitalBaltimore, Maryland