Neurocognitive factors behind speech problems in aphasia after stroke
Official title: Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Sentence Production Impairment in Aphasia
Funded at Univ of Maryland, College Park · NIH-11355623 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This NIH grant aims to understand why some people have trouble forming fluent sentences after a stroke and how brain timing and spelling-related processes contribute to those difficulties.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Univ of Maryland, College Park NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (College Park, United States) |
| Project start | July 15, 2023 |
| Project end | June 30, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $617,187 |
| NIH project number | 5R01DC020483-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11355623 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Adults with post-stroke aphasia, particularly those showing agrammatic symptoms and impaired sentence production, may be eligible.
✕Less likely to help
Patients without post-stroke aphasia or without significant sentence production deficits may not benefit from this research.
What this research studies
The project looks at how the brain areas and timing of thinking, planning, and speaking work together to produce sentences in people with post-stroke agrammatic aphasia. Researchers plan to test a new theoretical model that connects lexical, grammatical, motor, and cognitive processes to explain why speech is fragmented and slow. They will examine how neural activity changes over time during sentence planning to identify what goes wrong in PSA-G compared with other aphasia types. The study combines brain data with language tasks to improve future interventions that help patients communicate more effectively.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the work could lead to better targeted therapies that improve sentence building and spoken communication for people with PSA-G.
How similar studies have gone: Previous work supports that language production involves interacting brain networks, but this project tests a novel bottleneck model specific to agrammatic aphasia.
Where this research is happening
-
Univ of Maryland, College Park
College Park, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Faroqi Shah, Yasmeen — Univ of Maryland, College Park
- Study coordinator: Faroqi Shah, Yasmeen
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
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Communication Bridge: Improving language therapy for people with primary progressive aphasia
A proven language-therapy program called Communication Bridge helps people with primary progressive aphasia improve and maintain how they communicate with others.
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Neural signals linked to recovery from aphasia after stroke
This grant follows people who recently had a stroke and aphasia to understand why some recover language abilities better than others.
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Bilingualism and language resilience in Hispanic people with primary progressive aphasia
Researchers compare different bilingual experiences to see how they relate to language decline and thinking skills in Hispanic adults with primary progressive aphasia.
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Functional reorganization of language and general brain networks in aphasia
This project studies how language areas and general brain networks work together to help people recover language after a stroke, by looking at brain activity and responses to language tasks.
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eSANA: revealing and improving AAC use after stroke for aphasia
A project to explore how people with aphasia after a stroke can best use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) during early rehabilitation.
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Cortical Organization of Syntax in Aphasia
A patient-facing study to understand how brain injury affects sentence structure and help people with aphasia communicate more clearly.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.