Improving Aphasia Using Electrical Brain Stimulation

Summary

Language and communication are essential for almost every aspect of human life, but for people who have aphasia, a language processing disorder that can occur after stroke or brain injury, even simple conversations can become a formidable challenge. Speech and language therapy can help people recover their language ability, but often requires months or even years of therapy before a person is able to overcome these challenges. This research will investigate non-invasive brain stimulation as a way to enhance the effects of speech and language therapy, which may ultimately lead to better and faster recovery from stroke and aphasia. The investigators hypothesize that participants with aphasia who receive speech and language therapy paired with active electrical brain stimulation will improve significantly more on a language comprehension task than those who receive speech and language therapy paired with sham stimulation.

Conditions

• Stroke
• Aphasia

Interventions

DEVICE

Active transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

Active transcranial direct current stimulation will be delivered using a Soterix mini-CT device. Participants receiving this treatment will be administered 2 milliamperes (mA) of current for 20 minutes/session for 10 sessions.

DEVICE

Sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

Sham transcranial direct current stimulation will be delivered using a Soterix mini-CT device. Participants receiving this treatment will be administered 2 milliamperes (mA) of current for 1 minute to simulate the experience of tDCS, after which the current will be ramped down to zero for the remaining 19 minutes of the session. Participants in this arm will receive sham stimulation for 10 sessions.

BEHAVIORAL

Language Specific Attention Treatment

This is a specific type of speech-language therapy that focuses on simultaneously improving auditory comprehension and behavioral attention. All study participants will receive 10 sessions of this treatment.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

  collaborator NIH

• Syracuse University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-07-12

Primary Completion

2024-11-15

Completion

2024-12-31

FDA Device

Yes

Countries

• United States

Study Locations