Primary progressive aphasia is a neurological condition that causes a gradual decrease in linguistic skills. There is no cure or medication that can reverse or stop the progression of PPA. The standard practice in the clinical environment is speech and language therapy to help people with PPA maintain their ability to communicate.
The neuroscientists of the University of Arizona have presented a new treatment approach for PPA that combines traditional speech therapy with non -invasive electrical stimulation of the brain. The technique, called transcranial continuous current stimulation, uses a low electric current applied through electrodes in the scalp.
A new study published in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research describes the treatment approach, which researchers found that they are more effective to administer PPA compared to speech therapy alone.
“Primary progressive aphasia is a condition that causes the worsening of communication skills over time. It identified in literature only in the last three or four decades, so it is considered quite new in the world of medical care: it remains a little studied area,” said Katlyn Nickels, the main investigator of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Department of Discourse, Language and Aid.
While writing and speaking words, people not only recover their meaning. They also recover the sound of a word while speaking or writing, said Aneta Kielar, principal author of the study and associated teacher in the Department of Sciences of the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing.
If there is a problem with the word association with the way they sound, it is difficult to put together letters and speak or write a word, Kielar said. This affects people’s communication in their daily lives and their ability to work. For their study, the researchers focused on a type of PPA called PPA Logopenic, in which people have problems finding the right words and repeated phrases or sentences.
The researchers did a brain neuroimaging analysis to determine the area of the brain that needs to be stimulated, since people with PPA have brain atrophy or a loss of brain cells.
“We wanted to stimulate the area that most responds to language and we were careful not to stimulate an area that would have already stunted,” Kielar said.
Twelve individuals with written language deficit received two phases of treatment: in a phase, they obtained the spare speech therapy with the stimulation of active transcranial current. In another phase, they received the same speech therapy with the stimulation of continuous transcraneal placebo. The order of the phases was randomized and separated by a two -month break in the middle.
Although all participants improved after both treatments, they showed a larger and more durable improvement after the phase with active transcranial current stimulation compared to the stimulation of the transcranial continuous current placebo.
“People who made numerous spelling errors and fought to frame complete sentences before the treatment could form sentences that were grammatically correct, had fewer spelling errors and were more significant after treatment,” Kielar said.
Researchers say that brain stimulation helped induce neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to continue reorganizing and learning. And increased the effects of speech therapy.
“What that means is that brain stimulation can induce synapse formation, connections between neurons. These connections are important for people’s ability to learn and maintain new skills,” Kielar said.
In the future, the research group plans to analyze the genetic, cognitive and neural markers that influence the recovery of PPA. The long -term objective of researchers is to translate their research results into a clinical environment.
Because transcranial continuous current stimulation is economical, safe and easy to perform, barriers to implement it in clinical practice are less significant, Nickels said.
“Sometimes there is a wrong idea with neurodegenerative diseases, which once obtains a diagnosis, there is nothing that can be done,” Nickels said. “But we have learned through our research that even when there is a progressive brain disease, we can help restore lost function and even slow down the progression.”
This work was supported by the following subsidies to the main author, Aneta Kielar: Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Grant, Arizona Health Services Department (018676-00001); Innovations in healthy aging: great challenges of aged seed subsidy, the University of Arizona Health Sciences (2259304); and transdisciplinary research of the Academy of Data Sciences in Principles of Data Science at the University of Arizona (2259910). The research reported in the publication was supported by the Arizona Health Services Department and the State of Arizona (ADHS GRANT No. CTR057001) to Aneta Kielar.