Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023:37:103329.
doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2023.103329. Epub 2023 Jan 20.

Sex differences in effects of tDCS and language treatments on brain functional connectivity in primary progressive aphasia

Abigail E Licata  1 , Yi Zhao  2 , Olivia Herrmann  3 , Argye E Hillis  4 , John Desmond  3 , Chiadi Onyike  5 , Kyrana Tsapkini  6
Affiliations

Sex differences in effects of tDCS and language treatments on brain functional connectivity in primary progressive aphasia

Abigail E Licata et al. Neuroimage Clin. 2023.

Abstract

Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative disorder primarily affecting language functions. Neuromodulatory techniques (e.g., transcranial direct current stimulation, active-tDCS) and behavioral (speech-language) therapy have shown promising results in treating speech and language deficits in PPA patients. One mechanism of active-tDCS efficacy is through modulation of network functional connectivity (FC). It remains unknown how biological sex influences FC and active-tDCS or language treatment(s). In the current study, we compared sex differences, induced by active-tDCS and language therapy alone, in the default mode and language networks, acquired during resting-state fMRI in 36 PPA patients. Using a novel statistical method, the covariate-assisted-principal-regression (CAPs) technique, we found sex and age differences in FC changes following active-tDCS. In the default mode network (DMN): (1) men (in both conditions) showed greater FC in DMN than women. (2) men who received active-tDCS showed greater FC in the DMN than men who received language-treatment only. In the language network: (1) women who received active-tDCS showed significantly greater FC across the language network than women who received sham-tDCS. As age increases, regardless of sex and treatment condition, FC in language regions decreases. The current findings suggest active-tDCS treatment in PPA alters network-specific FC in a sex-dependent manner.

Keywords: Functional connectivity; Language therapy; Primary progressive aphasia (PPA); Sex differences; Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Brain regions included in the study.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Brain regions with high loading magnitude in DMN, the identified Component 1 (C1), (red: positive, blue: negative) loadings in C1.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Brain regions with high loading magnitude in the language network, the identified component 2 (C2), (red: positive, blue: negative) loadings in C2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Agosta F., Galantucci S., Canu E., Cappa S.F., Magnani G., Franceschi M., Falini A., Comi G., Filippi M. Disruption of structural connectivity along the dorsal and ventral language pathways in patients with nonfluent and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia: a DT MRI study and a literature review. Brain Lang. 2013;127:157–166. - PubMed
    1. Agosta F., Ferraro P.M., Canu E., Copetti M., Galantucci S., Magnani G., Marcone A., Valsasina P., Sodero A., Comi G., Falini A., Filippi M. Differentiation between subtypes of primary progressive aphasia by using cortical thickness and diffusion-tensor MR imaging measures. Radiology. 2015;276:219–227. doi: 10.1148/radiol.15141869. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bakker A., Krauss G.L., Albert M.S., Speck C.L., Jones L.R., Stark C.E., Yassa M.A., Bassett S.S., Shelton A.L., Gallagher M. Reduction of hippocampal hyperactivity improves cognition in amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Neuron. 2012;74:467–474. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Behzadi Y., Restom K., Liau J., Liu T.T. A component based noise correction method (CompCor) for BOLD and perfusion based fMRI. NeuroImage. 2007;37:90–101. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.04.042. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bhattacharjee S., Kashyap R., O’Brien B.A., McCloskey M., Oishi K., Desmond J.E., Rapp B., Chen S.A. Reading proficiency influences the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation: evidence from selective modulation of dorsal and ventral pathways of reading in bilinguals. Brain Lang. 2020;210 - PMC - PubMed

Publication types