Cortical Reorganization after Rehabilitation in a Patient with Conduction Aphasia Using High-Density EEG

Abstract

Conduction aphasia is a language disorder occurred after a left-brain injury. It is characterized by fluent speech production, reading, writing and normal comprehension, while speech repetition is impaired. The aim of this study is to investigate the cortical responses, induced by language activities, in a sub-acute stroke patient affected by conduction aphasia before and after an intensive speech therapy training. The patient was examined by using High-Density Electroencephalogram (HD-EEG) examination, while was performing language tasks. The patient was she evaluated at baseline and after two months after rehabilitative treatment. Our results showed that an intensive rehabilitative process, in sub-acute stroke, could be useful for a good outcome of language deficits. HD-EEG results showed that left parieto-temporol-frontal areas were more activated after 2 months of rehabilitation training compared with baseline. Our results provided evidence that an intensive rehabilitation process could contribute to an inter- and intra-hemispheric reorganization.

Case report of anosognosia for hemiplegia: A fMRI study

“…[ 18 ] In conclusion, our results provided evidence of the activation of motor areas in a condition of unawareness of motor impairment, [ 41 ] in a patient with a left-brain lesion. This case highlighted an interest of the compensation mechanism that involved neural networks near brain lesions and some areas of the contro-lesional hemisphere suggesting that the synaptic plasticity permitted an intra and inter-hemispheric reorganization of the cerebral system [ 42 ] to modulate the residual ability to generate motor planning. Our findings are consistent with Heilman’s feedforward theory, according to which anosognosia is the result of a discrepancy between the expectation of movement and the perception of the movement.…”