Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation as an Adjuvant for Nonfluent Aphasia: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Authors

• Lynsey M. Keator, Thomas Jefferson University
• Lisa Johnson, University of South Carolina
• Roger Newman-Norlund, University of South Carolina
• Kyler Spell, University of South Carolina
• Samaneh Nemati, University of South Carolina
• Leigh Ann Spell, University of South Carolina
• Dirk B. den Ouden, Chapman UniversityFollow
• Christopher Rorden, University of South Carolina
• Julius Fridriksson, University of South Carolina

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-23-2026

Abstract

Effective rehabilitation tools are essential for improving language outcomes in chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment is a behavioral treatment that has shown promise in enhancing speech output in nonfluent aphasia, potentially by acting as an external mechanism to synchronize anterior and posterior language regions in the left hemisphere. Transcranial alternating current stimulation has been hypothesized to enhance functional connectivity between brain regions by amplifying endogenous oscillations. This proof-of-concept study explored whether high-definition tACS (HD-tACS) could improve speech fluency in nonfluent aphasia when paired with speech entrainment. In a double-blind, pseudorandomized study, 1 mA of HD-tACS at 7 Hz was applied to anterior and posterior left-hemisphere regions of individuals with nonfluent aphasia (N = 13). Stimulation was applied under three conditions: in-phase, anti-phase, and sham, and paired speech entrainment. Three outcome measures were examined: (1) number of words produced; (2) number of errors, and (3) ‘entrainment’ to the speech entrainment model. Group-level analyses for two of the three outcome measures reveal statistically significant differences between the experimental conditions. In-phase alternating current stimulation yielded more words and better entrainment to the audiovisual model than the sham condition. This study provides promising evidence that HD-tACS could improve speech production in individuals with nonfluent aphasia. These results contribute to growing evidence supporting the therapeutic potential of non-invasive brain stimulation approaches as an adjuvant to traditional behavioral speech-language therapy in stroke survivors.

Comments

This article was originally published in Bioengineering, volume 13, issue 3, in 2026. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering13030372

Recommended Citation

Keator, L.M.; Johnson, L.; Newman-Norlund, R.; Spell, K.; Nemati, S.; Spell, L.A.; den Ouden, D.B.; Rorden, C.; Fridriksson, J. Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation as an Adjuvant for Nonfluent Aphasia: A Proof-of-Concept Study. Bioengineering 2026, 13, 372. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering13030372

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.