A new study at The University of Texas at Dallas could help researchers better understand how a stroke can affect the speech and language areas of the brain. It could also help diagnose aphasia — or post-stroke language loss — earlier on for patients.
Dr. Roozbeh Behroozmand at UTD recently accepted a grant of $1.7 million from the National Institute of Health to further his research on stroke patients diagnosed with aphasia. Behroozmand is an associate professor at the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and director of the Speech Neuroscience Lab.
Behroozmand, along with a team of researchers, are studying the brain mechanisms of speech production and disorders that could develop after experiencing a stroke, like aphasia.
In the U.S. there are about 2 million people with aphasia and strokes are the third leading cause of deaths, according to the National Aphasia Association.
Behroozmand said by better understanding what causes the speech disorder, researchers can use that knowledge for early diagnoses and development of new strategies for the treatments.
“Our research is primarily related to identifying the neural marker of speech disorder in individuals with post-stroke aphasia,” he said.
Patients develop aphasia after a head injury or stroke but can also slowly develop over time from other factors like a brain tumor or neurological disease, according to NIH. This results in damage to parts of the brain associated with language, usually the left side of the brain.
Behroozmand and his team’s research is a continuation of work over 10 years, first starting when he was a faculty member at University of South Carolina. He joined UTD last year where he’s furthering his research with “advanced and a state of the art, neuroimaging techniques.”
Behroozmand also said this isn’t the first grant his team has been awarded.
“We have received several grants from the National Institutes of Health to examine different aspects of speech and language disorders,” he said.
Aphasia is usually recognized when a patient undergoes an MRI. There are two broad types, and in those are multiple subcategories. Similar symptoms appear in all types of aphasia like language impairments, like production and perception of speech.
Behroozmand said patients visit speech pathology clinics as treatment. Most of the focus is helping patients find the best strategy to produce words to be able to communicate again but are still left with some level of impairment. Part of the problem is because these individuals have difficulty with processing auditory feedback.
“Part of the knowledge that we are trying to gain using this research is that how much the deficit in the processing of the hearing system, or the hearing feedback of our own speech may contribute to the lack of ability for fluent production,” he said.
Penelope Rivera is KERA’s news intern. Got a tip? Email Penelope at privera@kera.org.
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