UMD Researchers to Untangle Language Problems for Tongue-Tied Stroke Survivors

$3.1M NIH Award Allows UMD Speech Clinician, Psychologist to Study Debilitating Form of Aphasia

If you’ve ever started talking without knowing exactly how you’ll finish a sentence, then you’re familiar with the conveyor belt-like process of the human brain producing speech: Your brain finds the correct words, arranges them in order, then sends signals to the mouth and tongue to speak. As the first words of a sentence cross your lips, your brain is simultaneously finding new words, arranging them, and so on.

The delicate coordination of these operations can occasionally go awry for anyone. For survivors of stroke in particular, it can be much more serious.

Funded by a new five-year, $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, two University of Maryland researchers are investigating the timing of the neural processes required for spoken language production and their disruption in agrammatic aphasia, a common post-stroke disorder.

The collaboration between Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah, a professor of hearing and speech sciences, and L. Robert Slevc, an associate professor of psychology, employs magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain imaging to record neural activity during speech and parse the signals associated with the discrete operations for verbal expression.

Photo by Album/Alamy Stock Photo

Published on Wed, Aug 23, 2023 - 2:45PM