Publications by authors named "Silke Coemans"
Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a language-based dementia, causing progressive decline of language functions. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can augment effects of speech-and language therapy (SLT). However, this has not been investigated in bilingual patients with PPA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscranial Direct Current Stimulation may be a useful neuromodulation tool for enhancing the effects of speech and language therapy in people with aphasia, but research so far has focused on monolinguals. We present the effects of 9 sessions of anodal cerebellar tDCS (ctDCS) coupled with language therapy in a bilingual patient with chronic post-stroke aphasia caused by left frontal ischemia, in a double-blind, sham-controlled within-subject design. Language therapy was provided in his second language (L2).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExecutive functions (EFs) refer to a set of cognitive processes, specifically shifting, inhibition, updating of working memory, and are involved in the cognitive control of behavior. Conflicting results have been reported regarding impairments of EFs in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). We performed a multi-level meta-analysis to confirm whether deficits of EFs exist in this population, focusing on a common EFs composite, and the components shifting, inhibition and updating separately.
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- Acetylcholine (ACh) plays a vital role in learning and memory, specifically in social memory within the CA2 region of the hippocampus.
- Inhibiting cholinergic neurons from the medial septum/diagonal band of Broca impairs mice's ability to recognize new social interactions, highlighting ACh's importance in social novelty discrimination.
- Activation of nicotinic ACh receptors (nAChRs) increases excitation in CA2 principal cells, indicating that these receptors are key for social memory by regulating inhibition in this area.
A variety of tDCS approaches has been used to investigate the potential of tDCS to improve language outcomes, or slow down the decay of language competences caused by Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). The employed stimulation protocols and study designs in PPA are generally speaking similar to those deployed in post-stroke aphasic populations. These two etiologies of aphasia however differ substantially in their pathophysiology, and for both conditions the optimal stimulation paradigm still needs to be established.
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