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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Lang. Sci.
Sec. Language Processing
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/flang.2024.1434420
This article is part of the Research Topic Revisiting a 150-year-old conundrum on the role of Broca’s area in language processing: Embracing expected and unexpected results View all 3 articles

Exploring Post Rehabilitation Plasticity with Intra-cerebral Recordings on Anomic Profiles

Provisionally accepted
Agnes Trebuchon Agnes Trebuchon 1,2*Alexia Fasola Alexia Fasola 2Veronique Sabadell Veronique Sabadell 2Anne-Sophie Dubarry Anne-Sophie Dubarry 3Romain Carron Romain Carron 1,4Fabrice Bartolomei Fabrice Bartolomei 5,6F-Xavier Alario F-Xavier Alario 7
  • 1 Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Marseille, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
  • 2 Aix Marseille Univ, INSERM, INS, Inst Neurosci Syst, Marseille, France
  • 3 Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
  • 4 INSERM U1106 Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes, Faculté de Médecine, Aix Marseille Université, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
  • 5 AP-HM, Hôpitaux Universitaire de Marseille, Marseille, France, Marseille, France
  • 6 Aix Marseille Univ, INSERM, INS, Inst Neurosci Syst, Marseille, France, Marseille, France
  • 7 Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, CRPN, Marseille, France, Marseille, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Patients with drug-resistant epilepsy involving the language network often exhibit anomic profiles in daily life due to difficulties with lexical selection processes. There is very little evidence available regarding the effects of language rehabilitation in this population.We aim to induce brain plasticity combined with improvements in behavioral performance through language therapy in patients with epilepsy.We implemented a therapy focused on phonological and semantic features of infrequent words over three treatment sessions, each targeting a specific semantic category. Intracranial signals were recorded in 10 patients during baseline and post-therapy picturenaming sessions. Response time and percentage of correct responses during naming tests were collected. Time-frequency analyses were conducted on intracranial signals, and comparisons were made between baseline and post-therapy conditions for each patient.Results: Half of the patients demonstrated improved naming skills following the treatment. We observed significantly different recruitment of frontotemporal areas in the left hemisphere (including "Broca's Area") post-therapy in patients that improved naming skills. Specifically, we found significantly different high-gamma activity in the posterior left inferior frontal gyrus 500 ms after stimulus onset in patients with improved naming skills vs non-improved naming skills. This effect was not observed in the right hemisphere.Conclusions: These findings suggest that enhanced performance following language therapy is associated with modifications in posterior left IFG activations during latencies closely tied to the lexical selection process.

    Keywords: Anomia profile, intracranial EEG, Rehabilitation, Epilepsy, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)

    Received: 17 May 2024; Accepted: 13 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Trebuchon, Fasola, Sabadell, Dubarry, Carron, Bartolomei and Alario. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Agnes Trebuchon, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Marseille, Marseille, 13005, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

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