Insights into how a stroke affects reading could help with
rehabilitation

Date:
August 30, 2021
Source:
Georgetown University Medical Center
Summary:
Researchers, looking at the ability of people to sound out words
after a stroke, found that knowing which region of the brain
was impacted by the stroke could have important implications for
helping target rehabilitation efforts.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Georgetown University researchers, looking at the ability of people to
sound out words after a stroke, found that knowing which region of the
brain was impacted by the stroke could have important implications for
helping target rehabilitation efforts.


==========================================================================
The finding appeared August 30, 2021, in Brain Communications.

"One in five stroke survivors in the United States live with persistent language impairment. Most of these people also struggle with reading,"
says the study's first author, J. Vivian Dickens, PhD, a Georgetown
University MD/PhD student conducting research in the university's
Cognitive Recovery Lab and Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation
at Georgetown's Medical Center.

"Our study clarifies the neuroanatomical and cognitive bases of
post-stroke reading and language deficits, which could help facilitate predictions of deficits in stroke survivors and suggest targeted
treatments." The research focus was on phonological processing,
which is understanding and being able to use the sounds that comprise
language. There are three principal aspects to this processing: auditory,
or the ability to recognize the sounds of words, such as judging if words rhyme; motor, which is the ability to produce accurate and clear speech;
and auditory-motor translation, which is the translation of sounds heard
into speech.

"The goal of this study was to understand how post-stroke difficulties
with the three different aspects of phonology relate to difficulties
with reading," says Dickens. "There are two broad ways that people read
words: one involves sounding out words, which is particularly important
for reading new words; the other involves whole-word recognition. People
with post-stroke language impairment frequently have specific trouble
sounding out words." The investigators tested reading and phonological abilities in 67 people, 30 of whom had had a stroke and 37 that had
not. Advanced MRI techniques allowed the researchers to trace out white
matter connections, which are akin to wiring diagrams for the brain,
as well as map out stroke locations in the brains of affected study participants.

"We found two different patterns of reading problems. Strokes involving
the left frontal lobe caused problems with motor phonology and one of the
two ways of reading, specifically sounding out words. In contrast, strokes involving the left temporal and parietal lobes caused problems with auditory-motor translation and bothways of reading," says Dickens. "These results may help clinicians develop therapies focused on specific
reading problems that individual stroke survivors often struggle with."
"This study focused on reading aloud single words, a classic measure
of reading ability," says Peter E. Turkeltaub, MD, PhD, director of the Cognitive Recovery Lab in the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery,
medical director in the Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation
and senior author of the article. "Our results are an important step
forward in revealing the mechanisms of translating print to sound,
which is crucial for developing rehabilitative therapies for patients
who have had strokes." The investigators are planning studies to help
confirm the extent to which these findings can be generalized to silent reading, which relies on the same core psychological processes as oral
reading and is more important for reading in daily life. The researchers
are also hoping to turn their research tasks into useful clinical tests
to diagnose phonological processing.

In addition to Dickens and Turkeltaub, authors of the manuscript at
Georgetown include Andrew T. DeMarco, Candace M. van der Stelt, Sarah
F. Snider, Elizabeth H. Lacey and Rhonda B. Friedman. John D. Medaglia
is affiliated with Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania,
both in Philadelphia.

The authors report no competing interests.

This work was supported by an NIDCD grant #F30DC018215 to Dickens, an
NIDCD grant #R01DC014960 to Turkeltaub and U10NS086513 and K12HD093427
grants to DeMarco.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Georgetown_University_Medical_Center. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. J Vivian Dickens, Andrew T DeMarco, Candace M van der Stelt, Sarah F
Snider, Elizabeth H Lacey, John D Medaglia, Rhonda B Friedman, Peter
E Turkeltaub. Two types of phonological reading impairment in stroke
aphasia. Brain Communications, 2021; DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab194 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210830081814.htm

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