Advance in Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Aphasic Rehabilitation (review) / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied in rehabilitation of aphasia effectively. Based on the three hy-potheses on aphasic rehabilitation, it is needed to consider the stage, location and the extent of brain damage in the left hemisphere of aphasia patients. If the core language functional areas are not damaged, tDCS can be used to either acti-vate the left hemisphere to enhance the activity of perilesional areas, or to inhibit the right hemisphere to weaken the in-hibitory effect from the right one. In contrast, if the core language functional areas are damaged, tDCS should be used to activate the right hemisphere to compensate the left core language functional areas impaired. The integrity of white mat-ter fiber tracts also affects the efficacy of tDCS. By exciting or inhibiting the cortex, tDCS can enhance the cerebral con-nectivity, and mediate its neural processing, to improve word- retrieval deficit, articulatory disturbance and discourse skill in daily living. The benefit from tDCS may be long-term and generalizated, which needs more researches.