The neural mechanisms underlying recovery of aphasia in patients with left hemisphere stroke

Aphasia is a severely disabling disorder. In Italy, approximately 150.000 individuals suffer from aphasia following a stroke. Although most individuals regain at least some language functions, between 30 and 43% of those affected remain severely aphasic 18 months after stroke. Among the different language functions, word-finding difficulties are the most frequent, pervasive and persisting disorder. Therefore, naming in normal individuals and naming disorders in individuals with aphasia have consistently been an area of interest for many researchers. Several studies have clarified many aspects of the anatomo-functional architecture of the cognitive/linguistic processes involved in naming, and have begun to tackle the problems inherent in the recovery of naming disorders after stroke. However, some theoretical and clinical issues remain underspecified. In particular, the relative role of ipsilesional and contralesional areas is still debated. My PhD research program intends to evaluate the time course of recovery of language functions in patients with aphasia, as well as determine the neural underpinnings involved in the recovery of aphasia in patients with left hemisphere stroke, by means of an rTMS and fMRI study.