Cortical and behavioral correlates of alexia in primary progressive aphasia and Alzheimer's disease.

The underlying causes of reading impairment in neurodegenerative disease are not well understood. The current study seeks to determine the causes of surface alexia and phonological alexia in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and typical (amnestic) Alzheimer's disease (AD). Participants included 24 with the logopenic variant (lvPPA), 17 with the nonfluent/agrammatic variant (nfvPPA), 12 with the semantic variant (svPPA), 19 with unclassifiable PPA (uPPA), and 16 with AD.

Cerebellar tDCS Enhances Functional Communication Skills in Chronic Aphasia.

Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has emerged as a possible neuromodulatory tool to augment language therapy in post-stroke aphasia. However, there is limited information on whether tDCS may help to improve everyday functional communication.

Aims: To investigate whether cerebellar tDCS combined with computerized aphasia treatment improves functional communication skills in individuals with chronic aphasia.

An international core outcome set for primary progressive aphasia (COS-PPA): Consensus-based recommendations for communication interventions across research and clinical settings.

Introduction: Interventions to treat speech-language difficulties in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) often use word accuracy as a highly comparable outcome. However, there are more constructs of importance to people with PPA that have received less attention.

Methods: Following Core Outcome Set Standards for Development Recommendations (COSSTAD), this study comprised: Stage 1 - systematic review to identify measures; Stage 2 - consensus groups to identify important outcome constructs for people with PPA (n = 82) and care partners (n = 91); Stage 3 - e-Delphi consensus with 57 researchers.

Stability of ECoG high gamma signals during speech and implications for a speech BCI system in an individual with ALS: a year-long longitudinal study.

Speech brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to augment communication in individuals with impaired speech due to muscle weakness, for example in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurological disorders. However, to achieve long-term, reliable use of a speech BCI, it is essential for speech-related neural signal changes to be stable over long periods of time. Here we study, for the first time, the stability of speech-related electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals recorded from a chronically implanted ECoG BCI over a 12 month period.

Long-term, home-based transcranial direct current stimulation coupled with computerized cognitive training in frontotemporal dementia: A case report.

We present the case of a 62-year-old woman with probable behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) with cognitive/language deficits who demonstrated improved performance on cognitive/language testing and in functional tasks following long-term, home-based transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) coupled with computerized cognitive training (CCT). The patient underwent home-based tDCS (anode on the left prefrontal cortex and cathode on the right homologue) for 46 sessions over 10 weeks along with CCT. On post-treatment testing, the patient improved by 3 points on the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) (23 to 26).