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Stimulating conversation: Enhancement of elicited propositional speech in a patient with chronic non-fluent aphasia following transcranial magnetic stimulation

Authors :
Linda Sanders
Jennifer Benson
Olufunsho Faseyitan
Roy H. Hamilton
Margaret A. Naeser
Catherine Norise
H. Branch Coslett
Paula I. Martin
Source :
Brain and Language. 113:45-50
Publication Year :
2010
Publisher :
Elsevier BV, 2010.

Abstract

Although evidence suggests that patients with left hemisphere strokes and non-fluent aphasia who receive 1Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the intact right inferior frontal gyrus experience persistent benefits in naming, it remains unclear whether the effects of rTMS in these patients generalize to other language abilities. We report a subject with chronic non-fluent aphasia who showed stable deficits of elicited propositional speech over the course of 5 years, and received 1200 pulses of 1Hz rTMS daily for 10 days at a site identified as being optimally responsive to rTMS in this patient. Consistent with prior studies there was improvement in object naming, with a statistically significant improvement in action naming. Improvement was also demonstrated in picture description at 2, 6, and 10 months after rTMS with respect to the number of narrative words and nouns, sentence length, and use of closed class words. Compared to his baseline performance, the patient showed significant improvement on the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) subscale for spontaneous speech. These findings suggest that manipulation of the intact contralesional cortex in patients with non-fluent aphasia may result in language benefits that generalize beyond naming to include other aspects of language production.

Details

ISSN :
0093934X
Volume :
113
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Brain and Language
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....24db403a263541df6d5cc60812fad2ab
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2010.01.001