Aberrant neural oscillations in poststroke aphasia

Abstract

Neural oscillations are electrophysiological indicators of synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Recent work suggests aberrant patterns of neuronal activity in patients with poststroke aphasia. Yet, there is a lack of systematic explorations of neural oscillations in poststroke aphasia. Investigating changes in the dynamics of neuronal activity after stroke may be helpful to identify neural markers of aphasia and language recovery and increase the current understanding of successful language rehabilitation. This review summarizes research on neural oscillations in poststroke aphasia and evaluates their potential as biomarkers for specific linguistic processes. We searched the literature through PubMed, Web of Science, and EBSCO, and selected 31 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Our analyses focused on neural oscillation activity in each frequency band, brain connectivity, and therapy‐induced changes during language recovery. Our review highlights potential neurophysiological markers; however, the literature remains confounded, casting doubt on the reliability of these findings. Future research must address these confounds to confirm the robustness of cross‐study findings on neural oscillations in poststroke aphasia.