Changes in Functional Connectivity Associated with Direct Training and Generalization Effects of a Theory-Based Generative Naming Treatment

Sandberg, Chaleece W. and Kiran, Swathi (2013) Changes in Functional Connectivity Associated with Direct Training and Generalization Effects of a Theory-Based Generative Naming Treatment. [Clinical Aphasiology Paper]

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Abstract

Persons with aphasia who are trained to generate abstract words (e.g., justice) in a specific context-category (e.g., courthouse) have been shown to improve not only on the trained items, but also on concrete words (e.g., lawyer) in the same context-category (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). However, the underlying neural mechanism of this generalization effect is unknown. Abstract and concrete words provide a unique opportunity to study specific neural activity related to direct training and generalization because they are thought to be processed differently by the brain (Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009; Wang, Conder, Blitzer, & Shinkareva, 2010), but are linked in such a way as to promote generalization (Kiran et al., 2009). The current study examines the neural activation and functional connectivity patterns of abstract and concrete word processing in persons with aphasia before and after training abstract word retrieval to help uncover the neural mechanisms associated with direct training and generalization.

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