| Title: |
Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation as an Adjuvant for Nonfluent Aphasia: A Proof-of-Concept Study |
| Authors: |
Lynsey M. Keator; Lisa Johnson; Roger Newman-Norlund; Kyler Spell; Samaneh Nemati; Leigh Ann Spell; Dirk B. den Ouden; Christopher Rorden; Julius Fridriksson |
| Source: |
Bioengineering ; Volume 13 ; Issue 3 ; Pages: 372 |
| Publisher Information: |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
| Publication Year: |
2026 |
| Collection: |
MDPI Open Access Publishing |
| Subject Terms: |
transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS); nonfluent aphasia; speech-language therapy; noninvasive brain stimulation |
| Description: |
Effective rehabilitation tools are essential for improving language outcomes in chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment is a behavioral treatment that has shown promise in enhancing speech output in nonfluent aphasia, potentially by acting as an external mechanism to synchronize anterior and posterior language regions in the left hemisphere. Transcranial alternating current stimulation has been hypothesized to enhance functional connectivity between brain regions by amplifying endogenous oscillations. This proof-of-concept study explored whether high-definition tACS (HD-tACS) could improve speech fluency in nonfluent aphasia when paired with speech entrainment. In a double-blind, pseudorandomized study, 1 mA of HD-tACS at 7 Hz was applied to anterior and posterior left-hemisphere regions of individuals with nonfluent aphasia (N = 13). Stimulation was applied under three conditions: in-phase, anti-phase, and sham, and paired speech entrainment. Three outcome measures were examined: (1) number of words produced; (2) number of errors, and (3) ‘entrainment’ to the speech entrainment model. Group-level analyses for two of the three outcome measures reveal statistically significant differences between the experimental conditions. In-phase alternating current stimulation yielded more words and better entrainment to the audiovisual model than the sham condition. This study provides promising evidence that HD-tACS could improve speech production in individuals with nonfluent aphasia. These results contribute to growing evidence supporting the therapeutic potential of non-invasive brain stimulation approaches as an adjuvant to traditional behavioral speech-language therapy in stroke survivors. |
| Document Type: |
text |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials; https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering13030372 |
| DOI: |
10.3390/bioengineering13030372 |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering13030372 |
| Rights: |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.71F26254 |
| Database: |
BASE |