Lecture in the C-STAR series by Elena Barbieri, PhD (Northwestern University), delivered on January 27th, 2023.

Dr. Barbieri's Research Gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elena-Barbieri-7

Abstract:
Neuroimaging investigations of recovery from sentence processing deficits in aphasia

Sentence production and comprehension deficits are a hallmark of agrammatic aphasia, an acquired language disorder that most often occurs following a stroke affecting the left hemisphere, and of the agrammatic subtype of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA-G), a neurodegenerative disease in which neuronal loss (atrophy) affects primarily the language-dominant left hemisphere. In this talk, I will present the results of a few studies investigating the behavioral and neuroimaging effects of language interventions directed to sentence processing deficits in agrammatic aphasia due to stroke and in PPA-G, highlight the potential of right hemisphere homologues of language regions for supporting recovery, and discuss some of the factors underlying variability in treatment-induced changes in functional activation. The implications of such findings on the selection of targets for combined behavioral-neuromodulatory interventions also will be discussed, together with preliminary findings from studies using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).