A main goal of our lab is to help improve therapy for persons with aphasia. Aphasia is a language disorder that results from an acquired brain injury, such as a stroke. One important step for developing more effective therapy is understanding changes in the brain that occur as a result of successful therapy. We are currently using fMRI to explore changes in the brain that occur normally over time in people who have not had a stroke compared with changes in the brains of people who have had a stroke and are receiving therapy. This will help us understand which changes support recovery of function and which changes are maladaptive. So far, we have found that Broca’s area, an area of the prefrontal cortex in the left hemisphere of the brain that is important for language, appears to support success in a word-finding therapy, especially for abstract words. We are also exploring how whole networks of regions in the brain change in response to therapy. We believe these networks, which appear to be less connected in people with aphasia compared to people who have not had a stroke, will get stronger after therapy. Stay tuned!

See here for posters of our work:
CWS CNS 2016-14w33j6
SNL 2015-28xc5s3