Affiliations: Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and the
Harold Goodglass Boston University Aphasia Research Center, Department of
Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA | Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain
Stimulation, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, Cambridge, MA, USA | Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania,
Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation, Center for Cognitive
Neuroscience; Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA,
USA | Institut Universitari de Neurorehabilitació
Guttmann-UAB, Badalona, Spain
Note: [] Corresponding author: Margaret Naeser, Ph.D., Aphasia Research
Center 12-A, VA Boston Healthcare System, JP, 150 So. Huntington Ave., Boston,
MA 02130, USA. Tel.: +1 857 364 4030; Fax: +1 617 739 8926; E-mail: mnaeser@bu.edu
Abstract: This review of our research with rTMS to treat aphasia contains four
parts: Part 1 reviews functional brain imaging studies related to recovery of
language in aphasia with emphasis on nonfluent aphasia. Part 2 presents the
rationale for using rTMS to treat nonfluent aphasia patients (based on results
from functional imaging studies). Part 2 also reviews our current rTMS
treatment protocol used with nonfluent aphasia patients, and our functional
imaging results from overt naming fMRI scans, obtained pre- and post- a series
of rTMS treatments. Part 3 presents results from a pilot study where rTMS
treatments were followed immediately by constraint-induced language therapy
(CILT). Part 4 reviews our diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study that examined
white matter connections between the horizontal, midportion of the arcuate
fasciculus (hAF) to different parts within Broca's area (pars triangularis,
PTr; pars opercularis, POp), and the ventral premotor cortex (vPMC) in the RH
and in the LH. Part 4 also addresses some of the possible mechanisms involved
with improved naming and speech, following rTMS with nonfluent aphasia
patients.
