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Publications (81)
This study explored the feasibility and effectiveness of a short-term (10-week) intervention trial using Donepezil administered alone and combined with intensive language action therapy (ILAT) for the treatment of apathy and depression in ten people with chronic post-stroke aphasia. Outcome measures were the Western Aphasia Battery and the Stroke A...
Background. Intensive aphasia therapy can improve language functions in chronic aphasia over a short therapy interval of 2–4 weeks. For one intensive method, intensive language–action therapy, beneficial effects are well documented by a range of randomized controlled trials. However, it is unclear to date whether therapy-related improvements are ma...
Background
Impaired naming is a ubiquitous symptom in all types of aphasia, which often adversely impacts independence, quality of life, and recovery of affected individuals. Previous research has demonstrated that naming can be facilitated by phonological and semantic cueing strategies that are largely incorporated into the treatment of anomic dis...
Introduction: Depressive symptoms are a major drawback of aphasia, negatively impacting on functional outcomes. In a previous study, Intensive Language-Action Therapy (ILAT) was effective in improving depression and low mood in persons with chronic non-fluent aphasia. We present a proof-of-concept case–control study that evaluates language and mood...
Purpose
This study aimed to provide novel insights into the neural correlates of language improvement following intensive language-action therapy (ILAT; also known as constraint-induced aphasia therapy).
Method
Sixteen people with chronic aphasia underwent clinical aphasia assessment (Aachen Aphasia Test [AAT]), as well as functional magnetic reso...
Background: Impaired naming is a ubiquitous symptom in all types of aphasia, which often adversely impacts independence, quality of life, and recovery of affected individuals. Previous research has demonstrated that naming can be facilitated by phonemic and semantic cueing strategies that are largely incorporated into the treatment of anomic distur...
Background: Impaired naming is a ubiquitous symptom in all types of aphasia, which often adversely impacts independence, quality of life, and recovery of affected individuals. Previous research has demonstrated that naming can be facilitated by phonological and semantic cueing strategies that are largely incorporated into the treatment of anomic di...
The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying motor and language difficulties in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are still largely unclear. The present work investigates biological indicators of sound processing, (action-) semantic understanding and predictive coding and their correlation with clinical symptoms of ASD. Twenty-two adults with high-fu...
Several studies indicate the functional importance of the motor cortex for higher cognition, language and semantic processing, and place the neural substrate of these processes in sensorimotor action-perception circuits linking motor, sensory and perisylvian language regions. Interestingly, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), semant...
Is the meaning of an expected stimulus manifest in brain activity even before it appears? Although theories of predictive coding see anticipatory activity as crucial for the understanding of brain function, few studies have explored neurophysiologically manifest semantic predictions. Here, we report predictive negative-going potentials before the o...
Background and Purpose—
Evidence suggests that therapy can be effective in recovering from aphasia, provided that it consists of socially embedded, intensive training of behaviorally relevant tasks. However, the resources of healthcare systems are often too limited to provide such treatment at sufficient dosage. Hence, there is a need for evidence-...
Recent studies on face processing and its hemispheric lateralization suggest that inconsistencies in earlier findings might be partially explained by sex differences, as findings from event-related potential studies indicated a more asymmetric functioning of the visual cortex during face encoding in men, whereas women seemed to display a more bilat...
Objective:
Recent evidence has fuelled the debate on the role of massed practice in the rehabilitation of chronic post-stroke aphasia. Here, we further determined the optimal daily dosage and total duration of intensive speech-language therapy.
Methods:
Individuals with chronic aphasia more than 1 year post-stroke received Intensive Language-Act...
Background:
Patients with brain lesions and resultant chronic aphasia frequently suffer from depression. However, no effective interventions are available to target neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with aphasia who have severe language and communication deficits.
Objective:
The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of 2 different...
Recent approaches in the tradition of theories of semantic and conceptual “grounding” emphasize the role of perceptual and motor knowledge in language as well as action understanding. However, the role of the two cerebral hemispheres in integrating action-motor and language processes is not clear yet. The present study looked at the influence of a...
Background
Aphasia affects approximately one third of all stroke patients and may lead to chronic disability. Effective neurorehabilitation programs focusing on improving speech and language in patients with post-stroke aphasia are essential. A better understanding of the neurobiological processes accompanying language deficits and rehabilitation m...
Background
Previous studies have demonstrated that efficient language and communication therapy in chronic post stroke aphasia leads to significant clinical language improvements (Pulvermüller et al., 2001) and promotes neuroplasticity. Brain areas frequently associated with functional restitution of language comprise perilesional sites in the left...
A range of methods in clinical research aim to assess treatment-induced progress in aphasia therapy. Here, we used a crossover randomized controlled design to compare the suitability of utterance-centered and dialogue-sensitive outcome measures in speech-language testing. Fourteen individuals with post-stroke chronic non-fluent aphasia each receive...
Clinical language performance and neurophysiological correlates of language processing were measured before and after intensive language therapy in patients with chronic (time post stroke >1 year) post stroke aphasia (PSA). As event-related potential (ERP) measure, the mismatch negativity (MMN) was recorded in a distracted oddball paradigm to short...
Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) (Pulvermuller et al., 2001), a new treatment approach for patients with chronic poststroke aphasia (PSA), is an efficacious, short-term treatment developed on the basis of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) (Taub et al., 1993) and communicative aphasia therapy (CAT) (Davis & Wilcox, 1985), as well a...
Introduction:
Clinical research highlights the importance of massed practice in the rehabilitation of chronic post-stroke aphasia. However, while necessary, massed practice may not be sufficient for ensuring progress in speech-language therapy. Motivated by recent advances in neuroscience, it has been claimed that using language as a tool for comm...
Introduction: Aphasia and other language deficits are frequently seen as structural-linguistic impairments affecting speech sounds, vocabulary and syntax. In contrast, pragmatic-linguistic functions such as the ability to use linguistic materials in order to perform linguistic actions, i.e. speech acts, are attributed to the right, non-dominant hem...
Atypical language is a fundamental feature of autism spectrum conditions (ASC), but few studies have examined the structural integrity of the arcuate fasciculus, the major white matter tract connecting frontal and temporal language regions, which is usually implicated as the main transfer route used in processing linguistic information by the brain...
Effects of intensive language action therapy (ILAT) on automatic language processing were assessed using Magnetoencephalography (MEG). Auditory magnetic mismatch negativity (MMNm) responses to words and pseudowords were recorded in twelve patients with chronic aphasia before and immediately after two weeks of ILAT. Following therapy, Patients showe...
The role of the two hemispheres in the neurorehabilitation of language is still under dispute. This study explored the changes in language-evoked brain activation over a 2-week treatment interval with intensive constraint induced aphasia therapy (CIAT), which is also called intensive language action therapy (ILAT). Functional magnetic resonance ima...
Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterised by deficits in understanding and expressing emotions and are frequently accompanied by alexithymia, a difficulty in understanding and expressing emotion words. Words are differentially represented in the brain according to their semantic category and these difficulties in ASC predict reduced activa...
Action-perception circuits containing neurons in the motor system have been proposed as the building blocks of higher cognition; accordingly, motor dysfunction should entail cognitive deficits. Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are marked by motor impairments but the implications of such motor dysfunction for higher cognition remain unclear. We here...
Reading utilises at least two neural pathways. The temporal lexical route visually maps whole words to their lexical entries, whilst the nonlexical route decodes words phonologically via parietal cortex. Readers typically employ the lexical route for familiar words, but poor comprehension plus precocity at mechanically ‘sounding out’ words suggests...
Background: Brain and language theories suggest the application of general neuroscientific and linguistic principles in the neurorehabilitation of language. The interwoven nature of language and action has long been emphasised in linguistic pragmatics, and recent neuroscience research has indeed demonstrated tight functional interactions between la...
Background:
Atypical organisation of the semantic system in autism spectrum conditions (ASC) is implied by previous research (Harris et al, 2006) but remains understudied. In typical individuals, word meaning is embodied in sensorimotor systems related to experiencing that concept in the world. Action-related words (e.g. “kick”) activate frontoce...
Sensorimotor areas activate to action- and object-related words, but their role in abstract meaning processing is still debated.
Abstract emotion words denoting body internal states are a critical test case because they lack referential links to objects.
If actions expressing emotion are crucial for learning correspondences between word forms and e...
Here, we ask whether frontotemporal cortex is functionally dissociated into distributed lexical and category-specific semantic networks. To this end, fMRI activation patterns elicited during the processing of words from different semantic categories were categorized using k-means cluster algorithms. Results showed a distributed pattern of inferiorf...
Previous behavioural studies have demonstrated evidence for impaired interhemispheric cooperation in schizophrenia patients. The present study uses event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and source localisations to investigate the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying hemispheric cooperation. Fourteen schizophrenia patients and 15 healthy control...
Neurophysiological correlates of hemispheric asymmetry and interhemispheric interaction in lexical processing were investigated in a lexical decision task with tachistoscopic stimulus presentation either unilaterally, to the right or left visual field, or bilaterally, with identical stimulus copies to each visual hemi-field. Behavioral data confirm...
The brain processes of language recovery after stroke are poorly understood, partly because past research did not allow to differentiate the effects of spontaneous restitution processes from those of learning-related cortical reorganization. Here, we use a new approach offered by recently developed intense neuropsychological therapy methods, which...
Neurophysiological correlates of language recovery after stroke were investigated. Neurological patients with single focal lesions in their left or right hemisphere and healthy control subjects made lexical decisions on written words and pseudo-words while EEG responses were recorded. At the time of testing, patients did not show clinically apparen...
The cell assembly model of language posits that words are laid down in the cortex by discrete sets of neurons distributed over specific parts of the brain. The strong internal links of these “word webs” may not only bind articulatory and acoustic knowledge of a lexical item, they may also link word and meaning; for example, by connecting neuron pop...
Abstract An oddball paradigm was used to investigate brain processes elicited by spoken words and pseudowords played monaurally, to the left or right ear, or simultaneously to both ears of human subjects instructed to ignore acoustic stimuli but watch a silent video film. The mismatch negativity (MMN), a neurophysiological index of the automatic ac...
Zusammenfassung: Gehirnwissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse der vergangenen Jahre haben neue neuropsychologische Therapieformen hervorgebracht, deren allgemeine Prinzipien sich mit den Termini Intensivierung, Verhaltensrelevanz und Fokussierung umreißen lassen (genannt Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy - CIA Therapie). Intensivierung der Therapie bedeut...
Gehirnwissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse haben in den vergangenen Jahren zur Entwicklung neuer Therapieformen in der neurologischen und neuropsychologischen Rehabilitationsforschung geführt. Allgemeine Prinzipien, die diesen neuen Verfahren zugrunde liegen, lassen sich mit den Termini Intensivierung, Verhaltensrelevanz und Fokussierung umreißen. Intens...
Interhemispheric cooperation can be indicated by enhanced performance when stimuli are presented to both visual fields relative to one visual field alone. This "bilateral gain" is seen for words but not pseudowords in lexical decision tasks, and has been attributed to the operation of interhemispheric cell assemblies that exist only for meaningful...
In 7 experiments, the influence of varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) on the processing of redundant information about words and pseudowords was investigated. All stimuli were visually presented once or twice with 2 copies of the same item flashed either simultaneously or with short SOAs between presentations. The experiments revealed a red...
In 7 experiments, the influence of varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) on the processing of redundant information about words and pseudowords was investigated. All stimuli were visually presented once or twice with 2 copies of the same item flashed either simultaneously or with short SOAs between presentations. The experiments revealed a red...
Interhemispheric transfer was investigated in 14 schizophrenia patients and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls in a lateralized lexical decision task. Words and pseudowords were tachistoscopically presented either to the left or to the right visual hemifield. Event-related potentials were determined from a 65-channel electroencephalogram. Inf...
Evidence for interhemispheric cooperation during language processing has been demonstrated for words, but not for meaningless pseudowords. Specifically, responses were found to be faster and more accurate when identical copies of a word were presented bilaterally to both hemispheres, relative to unilateral single presentations. This bilateral advan...
Names are thought to be represented in the brain differently from common nouns. Although this idea is supported by both theoretical and empirical arguments, the brain areas that are relevant for the recognition of personal names-and in particular the extent of right hemisphere involvement-remain controversial. We investigated the hypothesis that, u...
In two experiments, functional laterality and interhemispheric transfer was investigated in schizophrenic patients (n=14) and healthy controls (n=17). In Experiment 1, words and pseudowords were presented either to the left or right ear (monaural condition) or simultaneously to both ears (binaural condition). In Experiment 2, subjects had to discri...
Patients with chronic aphasia were assigned randomly to a group to receive either conventional aphasia therapy or constraint-induced (CI) aphasia therapy, a new therapeutic technique requiring intense practice over a relatively short period of consecutive days. CI aphasia therapy is realized in a communicative therapeutic environment constraining p...
A growing body of literature suggests that schizophrenic patients often do not show the normal brain hemispheric asymmetry. We have found this for simple tones presented to the right ear in a previous study. In this study we extended this investigation to left ear stimulation and verbal stimuli.
With a whole-head neuromagnetometer, contra- and ipsi...
EEGs were recorded from patients in early stages of Parkinson's disease (17 patients, 9 females) and healthy controls (12 subjects, 8 females) during rest and during execution/imagining of a complex motor task. The prediction that Parkinson's disease patients compared to controls would show more complex brain dynamics during performance of a comple...
Functional lateralization and interhemispheric interaction during word processing were investigated in schizophrenic patients (n=12) and matched healthy controls (n=18). Words and phonologically regular pseudowords were presented tachistoscopically either in the left or right visual field (unilateral conditions), or simultaneously in both visual he...
This study investigated whether language-related cognitive processes can be modified by learned modulation of cortical activity. Study participants received feedback of slow cortical potentials (SCPs) recorded above left-hemispheric language cortices and were reinforced for producing negative and positive shifts upon two different discriminative st...
Words from different classes have been found to activate different brain areas. However, it is unclear whether grammatical word properties, for example their being part of different lexical categories (e.g. nouns vs. verbs) or semantic features of the words (e.g. that they refer to visually perceived entities or to actions) are relevant for eliciti...
Humans can learn to intentionally control their brain states based on information about their own electrocortical activity. Using an operant conditioning technique, twelve healthy volunteers were trained to shift their slow cortical potentials recorded from left-hemispheric language cortices in the positive versus negative direction. After training...
Coherent high-frequency neuronal activity has been proposed as a physiological indicator of perceptual and higher cognitive processes. Some of these processes can only be investigated in humans and the use of non-invasive recording techniques appears to be a prerequisite for investigating their physiological substrate in the healthy human brain. Af...
In a controlled clinical study, we investigated the effects of behavioral treatment on postural and gait initiation problems idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). Comparable groups of patients received therapy (experimental group, n = 15) and nonspecific psychological treatment (control group, n = 14) for 10 weeks. We monitored various variables ref...
Müller's target article aims to summarize approaches to the question of how language elements (phonemes, morphemes, etc.) and rules are laid down in the brain. However, it suffers from being too vague about basic assumptions and empirical predictions of neurobiological models, and the empirical evidence available to test the models is not appropria...
Bilateral presentation of two copies of the same word leads to faster lexical decisions compared to unilateral presentation alone (bilateral gain). This has implications for theories of interhemispheric interaction, because it suggests that, under certain conditions, both hemispheres cooperate rather than inhibit each other or act independently. Ex...
Patients with idiopathic Parkinson's syndrome, most of them in early stages of the disease, and matched healthy controls participated in a continuous performance task while their EEGs were recorded from 15 electrodes. During preparation of movements, a contingent negative variation (CNV) maximal at central and posterior sites was visible. This CNV...
The effects of psychological treatment of idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (PD) were investigated. Behavioral treatment focusing on control of motor activity was compared to a nonspecific psychological treatment. Patients were randomly assigned to 2 treatment groups with 20 patients in the behavioral group and 21 patients in the control group. The 2...
According to Hebb, elements of higher cognitive processes, such as concepts, words and mental images, are realized in the brain as cortical cell assemblies, i.e. large and strongly connected neuron populations that form functional units. Neurons belonging to such assemblies may be scattered over wide cortical areas, and some cell assemblies may eve...
Meaningful words and matched pseudowords, such as moon vs. noom, are of equal perceptual complexity, but invoke different cognitive processes. To investigate high-frequency cortical responses to these stimuli, biomagnetic signals were recorded simultaneously over both hemispheres of right-handed individuals listening to words and pseudowords. Consi...
If two copies of a meaningful word are tachistoscopically presented simultaneously in both visual half-fields of normal subjects the word will be processed more rapidly and more accurately compared to unilateral presentation (bilateral gain). The word-specific bilateral gain may be due to excitatory transcallosal connections within interhemispheric...
Function words, content words and pronounceable non-words (pseudowords) were presented tachistoscopically either in the left or the right visual field or with identical copies flashed simultaneously to both visual half-fields. Consistent with earlier studies [10], function words were found to show a right visual field advantage, whereas for content...