AAN 2026 | Current evidence for non-invasive neuromodulation techniques in the treatment of post-stroke aphasia
Priyanka Shah-Basak, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, discusses the current evidence for non-invasive neuromodulation techniques to treat post-stroke aphasia. Dr Shah-Basak highlights that while the evidence for these techniques is still in the research stage, the goal is to optimize their effects to be used in conjunction with speech-language therapy. This interview took place at the 78th American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.
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Professionally administered speech and language therapy or therapies are the standard of care. And so these are the therapies that people receive in the outpatient setting. And what we are trying to do is see if non-invasive techniques of neuromodulation, these are techniques that we’re able to modulate brain activity using non-invasive techniques and see combining those with speech language therapy can have an impact or can enhance or augment the effects of standard speech and language therapy and so that’s where neuromodulation comes in for post-stroke aphasia treatments. There are several different types of non-invasive neuromodulation techniques. There are ways in which we can use electrical currents as well as magnetic energy to be able to modulate brain activity. And so currently the evidence for both the electrical stimulation and magnetic stimulation is to the point where it’s still considered research-based therapies it’s not ready for prime time, it’s not ready for translation into the clinical settings. And the reason why is because there are several parameters several factors that we still are trying to understand. And especially with electrical stimulation given that it is pretty weak and the effects on the brain and the brain activity can be a subthreshold or quite low we’re trying to as in the research community trying to see if we can optimize the effects of neuromodulation and electrical neuromodulation techniques but the idea behind all these neuromodulation techniques is to be able to boost brain activity in combination with whatever the brain activity, the ongoing brain activity associated with speech-language therapy. And so the idea is that are we able to leverage the brain activity ongoing with speech-language therapy, combine it with brain stimulation to enhance the effects of speech-language therapy and the changes in the brain. The magnetic stimulation is more powerful, the transcranial magnetic stimulation, but it is also quite bulky the equipment and so there are some limitations to it where the patients are required to be physically available to visit to the clinic or to the labs to receive it whereas electrical stimulation is relatively low cost it’s portable and so we are able to if it works and if there is evidence to suggest that it does boost therapeutic outcomes that there is a way to decentralize it to make it more universal where we can even send patients home with these devices as they engage in speech language therapy using tablets or computerized way of receiving therapy. So that’s the current evidence. It’s relatively still in research settings and we’re working really hard to be able to optimize it so that we’re able to translate it to clinical.
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