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Have you recently been diagnosed with aphasia?

Click here to download informational recruitment letter

If so, you may have asked, when am I going to get better? How will my language recover? Unfortunately, we still don’t have the precise answers to these questions. This is for many reasons. Among them are the variety of possible language challenges that can occur. Also, it is hard to link specific brain areas with specific language challenges.

After a stroke, most people with aphasia will at least partially recover their ability to speak and understand. It might take months or even years to recover. This recovery pattern will be different for everyone.

Our lab is motivated to better understand how recovery from brain damage unfolds in time and how we can enhance it. Our findings will help guide better treatment and diagnosis for people with aphasia. You can help us shed light on these mysteries by participating in our current studies.

These concerns and questions motivate our current research project. The purpose of this project, “Neural mechanisms and recovery of language production deficits in aphasia”, is to understand how people recover language after stroke in the first year and beyond.

For this study, we are seeking individuals with both acute and chronic aphasia. For those who just recently had a stroke, we will do language and cognitive testing at the one month, three months, and one year post-stroke time points. If you have chronic aphasia, we will do language and cognitive testing twice, one year apart. If you are eligible, to paint the most complete picture we will conduct an MRI brain scan at each testing time point. Each session will last about 2 to 4 hours. The testing may be completed over the course of several days.

You can participate in the current study if:

The scanning for the study will be done at the Brain Imaging Center at the University of California Berkeley. Testing will take place either at the University of California Berkeley campus or at your home. Also, some of the behavioral testings can be done remotely via videoconferencing. You will be compensated $25 an hour for your time. We will also compensate you for your transportation costs.

Interested in participating in our research? We can be reached at:
510-846-8905
dronkers@berkeley.edu