Neuroplasticity Biomarkers in Aphasia
NCT Number: NCT06471127
Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
Phases: NA
Conditions: Aphasia|Language|Stroke
Interventions: BEHAVIORAL: Pseudoword learning paradigm task
Sponsor: University of Wisconsin, Madison
Collaborators: National Institutes of Health (NIH)|National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Sex: ALL
Age: ADULT, OLDER_ADULT
Enrollment: 90
Study Design: Allocation: NA|Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP|Masking: NONE|Primary Purpose: OTHER
Start Date: 2024-09
Completion Date: 2029-05-31

Summary:
Patients with stroke frequently suffer from aphasia, a disorder of expressive and/or receptive language, that can lead to serious health consequences, including social isolation, depression, reduced quality of life, and increased caregiver burden. Aphasia recovery varies greatly between individuals, and likely relies upon the capacity for neuroplasticity, both at a systems level of reorganized brain networks and a molecular level of neuronal repair and plasticity. The proposed work will evaluate genetic and neural network biological markers of neuroplasticity associated with variability in aphasia, with a future goal to improve prognostics and identify therapeutic targets to reduce the long-term burdens of aphasia.

Primary Outcome Measures: Aphasia presence/severity, The primary outcome measure for Aim 1 will be overall aphasia severity. Severity across language domains will be measured by Western Aphasia Battery-Revised Aphasia Quotient (AQ). AQ scores range from 0-100 and rate severity as follows: 0-25 is very severe, 26-50 is severe, 51-75 is moderate, and 76+ is mild., 3 months, 6 months, 1 year post-stroke|Semantic processing, A primary outcome measure for Aim 2 will be semantic versus phonological processing ability. Semantic processing will be measured by the three pictures version of the Pyramids and Palm Trees Test (PPT) and Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA) 51: Word Semantic Association, and semantic weights will be calculated from Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT).

PPT ranges from 0-52, with higher scores indicating a better ability to retrieve item names from semantic memory.

PALPA 51 ranges from 0 to 40, with each correct semantic association earning one point.

PNT semantic weights refer to the measure of the semantic relatedness of the words used in the test., At least 1 year post-stroke|Phonological processing, A primary outcome measure for Aim 2 will be semantic versus phonological processing ability. Phonological processing will be measured by PALPA 1: Same-Different Discrimination Using Nonword Minimal Pairs as a measure of input phonology and phonological weights will be calculated from Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT).

PALPA 1 range is 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy. PNT phonological weights refer to the measure of the phonologic relatedness of the words used in the test., At least 1 year post-stroke|Noun processing, A primary outcome measure for Aim 2 will be noun versus verb processing ability. Noun processing will be measured by Object and Action Naming Battery (OANB) to assess production and Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA) 47 to assess comprehension.

PALPA 47 range is from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy. OANB object naming range is 0 to 162, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy., At least 1 year post-stroke|Verb processing, A primary outcome measure for Aim 2 will be noun versus verb processing ability. Verb processing will be measured by Object and Action Naming to assess production and Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS) Verb Comprehension Test.

NAVS Verb Comprehension range is 0-22, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy.

OANB action naming range is 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy., At least 1 year post-stroke|Pseudoword learning, A primary outcome measure for Aim 3 will be pseudoword learning, with scores for immediate recognition and delayed recognition ability. This experimental paradigm has been implemented in patients with aphasia by Penaloza and colleagues from the Ancient Farming Equipment Paradigm.

This assessment is measured in proportion of correction responses, range 0-100%, with higher scores indicating greater accuracy., At least 1 year post-stroke|Verbal learning, A primary outcome measure for Aim 3 will be verbal learning, which will be measured by the standardized assessment of Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. Immediate recall is range 0-36 and delayed recall is range 0-12. Higher scores indicate more words recalled. Recognition is range 0-12, with higher scores indicating better ability to correctly identify previously learned information among distractors., At least 1 year post-stroke