Does orthographic overlap influence lexical selection?

Understanding whether and how various processes interact in language production can help us both understand aphasic errors and develop theoretically motivated treatment approaches. We examined semantic errors produced in writing-to-dictation by an individual with acquired dysgraphia to determine whether letter-level information – particularly overlap between the target and the semantic error – can affect lexical selection processes in these errors. Our results indicated that the particular semantic errors that were produced were significantly more likely to share orthographic structure than would be expected by chance alone, indicating interaction in the form of feedback from letter-level processes to lexical selection

Use of semantic feature analysis in group aphasia treatment: extension and expansion

Four participants with varying etiologies and severities of aphasia (all chronic phase) received group therapy using semantic feature analysis (SFA) during discourse. Pre- to post-treatment analyses examined lexical retrieval and discourse changes with associated effect sizes.  We hypothesized that lexical retrieval and/or overall communicative effectiveness would improve. Results provide support for these hypotheses and suggest that individuals with differing types of aphasia derive different benefits from this protocol. One participant, also involved in a previous study of group SFA, enabled comparison of treatment effects with and without homework

Robotic arm rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients with aphasia may promote speech and language recovery (but effect is not enhanced by supplementary tDCS)

Objective: This study aimed to determine the extent to which robotic arm rehabilitation for chronic stroke may promote recovery of speech and language function in individuals with aphasia. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 17 individuals from a hemiparesis rehabilitation study pairing intensive robot assisted therapy with sham or active tDCS and evaluated their speech (N = 17) and language (N = 9) performance before and after a 12-week (36 session) treatment regimen. Performance changes were evaluated with paired t-tests comparing pre- and post-test measures. There was no speech therapy included in the treatment protocol. Results: Overall, the individuals significantly improved on measures of motor speech production from pre-test to post-test. Of the subset who performed language testing (N = 9), overall aphasia severity on a standardized aphasia battery improved from pre-test baseline to post-test. Active tDCS was not associated with greater gains than sham tDCS. Conclusions: This work indicates the importance of considering approaches to stroke rehabilitation across different domains of impairment, and warrants additional exploration of the possibility that robotic arm motor treatment may enhance rehabilitation for speech and language outcomes. Further investigation into the role of tDCS in the relationship of limb and speech/language rehabilitation is required, as active tDCS did not increase improvements over sham tDCS

Robotic Arm Rehabilitation in Chronic Stroke Patients With Aphasia May Promote Speech and Language Recovery (but Effect Is Not Enhanced by Supplementary tDCS)

Objective: This study aimed to determine the extent to which robotic arm rehabilitation for chronic stroke may promote recovery of speech and language function in individuals with aphasia.Methods: We prospectively enrolled 17 individuals from a hemiparesis rehabilitation study pairing intensive robot assisted therapy with sham or active tDCS and evaluated their speech (N = 17) and language (N = 9) performance before and after a 12-week (36 session) treatment regimen. Performance changes were evaluated with paired t-tests comparing pre- and post-test measures. There was no speech therapy included in the treatment protocol.Results: Overall, the individuals significantly improved on measures of motor speech production from pre-test to post-test. Of the subset who performed language testing (N = 9), overall aphasia severity on a standardized aphasia battery improved from pre-test baseline to post-test. Active tDCS was not associated with greater gains than sham tDCS.Conclusions: This work indicates the importance of considering approaches to stroke rehabilitation across different domains of impairment, and warrants additional exploration of the possibility that robotic arm motor treatment may enhance rehabilitation for speech and language outcomes. Further investigation into the role of tDCS in the relationship of limb and speech/language rehabilitation is required, as active tDCS did not increase improvements over sham tDCS

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Enhancing Aphasia Therapy: Two Studies of TDCS in Chronic Aphasia

Aphasia is an acquired impairment of language secondary to neurological brain damage commonly seen in stroke, and is defined by impairment to communication through speech and language which can limit participation in work, family, and social settings. Standard aphasia treatment consists of behavioral therapy to restore or compensate for this impairment. Unfortunately, recovery is often incomplete with long-lasting residual communication deficits. Enhancing the effects of behavioral therapy has long been a goal of aphasia researchers. Behavioral therapy takes advantage of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change, and a recent direction has been to use adjuvants to behavioral treatment to enhance these effects, even in the chronic stage of recovery. The two studies reported here use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for this purpose. tDCS provides low-level current that can hyper- or depolarize cortical neurons, to build on the neuroplastic capacity of the brain. In the studies reported here, the anode was placed over the left primary motor cortex, with the cathode over the right supraorbital region. Study one investigated whether tDCS administered prior to robotic motor therapy (36 sessions over 12 weeks) resulted in improvements in speech/language outcome measures, comparing a group receiving active tDCS with a group receiving sham tDCS. This study revealed some overall differences on selected speech and language measures from pre-test to post-test, although tDCS condition did not affect performance. One important finding this work revealed was a possible cross domain synergy between motor and speech-language therapy, even when no speech therapy was provided. Study two examined whether the timing of tDCS relative to a speech/language treatment affects treatment outcomes. This study compared participants receiving tDCS immediately preceding computerized aphasia treatment to participants receiving tDCS and treatment simultaneously. A crossover design was employed so each participant also received sham tDCS for comparison. No interaction was found between stimulation type and timing (preceding or during) of aphasia treatment. Accordingly, the results were somewhat equivocal with respect to the best approach. Further investigation with larger sample sizes, longer times between tDCS conditions or multiple consecutive sessions may help clarify the role of tDCS timing in aphasia treatment

Robotic Arm Rehabilitation in Chronic Stroke Patients With Aphasia May Promote Speech and Language Recovery (but Effect Is Not Enhanced by Supplementary tDCS)

Objective: This study aimed to determine the extent to which robotic arm rehabilitation for chronic stroke may promote recovery of speech and language function in individuals with aphasia. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 17 individuals from a hemiparesis rehabilitation study pairing intensive robot assisted therapy with sham or active tDCS and evaluated their speech (N = 17) and language (N = 9) performance before and after a 12-week (36 session) treatment regimen. Performance changes were evaluated with paired t-tests comparing pre- and post-test measures. There was no speech therapy included in the treatment protocol. Results: Overall, the individuals significantly improved on measures of motor speech production from pre-test to post-test. Of the subset who performed language testing (N = 9), overall aphasia severity on a standardized aphasia battery improved from pre-test baseline to post-test. Active tDCS was not associated with greater gains than sham tDCS. Conclusions: This work indicates the importance of considering approaches to stroke rehabilitation across different domains of impairment, and warrants additional exploration of the possibility that robotic arm motor treatment may enhance rehabilitation for speech and language outcomes. Further investigation into the role of tDCS in the relationship of limb and speech/language rehabilitation is required, as active tDCS did not increase improvements over sham tDCS