Neuromodulation for Post-Stroke Aphasia

Purpose of Review: Aphasia is a prominent sequela of stroke that affects the language centres and negatively impacts the quality of daily living of stroke survivors. Speech and language therapy (SLT) still stands as the only therapy modality with robust evidence, but in the past three decades, many studies have reported the potential utility of neuromodulation to enhance the effects of SLT. Recent Findings: Through the application of either non-invasive or invasive magnetic or electrical stimulation or neuro-active pharmaceutical agents, neuromodulation induces alteration of neuronal activity. Summary: In this paper, we provide a focused review of key studies investigating the use of neuromodulation techniques, namely transcranial magnetic and direct current stimulation, to map speech and language function and enhance speech recovery after stroke. Neuromodulation, on its own or combined with other modalities, such as pharmacotherapy or SLT, holds a lot of promise in the management of aphasia. Neuromodulation treatment protocols need to be better understood and optimized and validated by adequately powered, randomized, double-blind clinical trials. © 2016, Springer Science + Business Media New York.