Neurorehabilitation in semantic aphasia

Lead researcher: Professor Beth Jefferies, Department of Psychology

People with aphasia often have problems with comprehension following a left-hemisphere stroke. These difficulties typically reflect poor regulation of retrieval to suit the current context or goals, as opposed to degraded knowledge.

Our work has been making sense of these deficits by finding out what helps and hinders semantic retrieval in people with aphasia, and how comprehension relates to changes in brain networks. This work is supported by convergent studies of the neural basis of semantic control in healthy participants.

Selected publications

Glyn P. Hallam, Hannah E. Thompson, Mark Hymers, Rebecca E. Millman, Jennifer M. Rodd, Matthew A. Lambon Ralph, Jonathan Smallwood, Elizabeth Jefferies (2018) Task-based and resting-state fMRI reveal compensatory network changes following damage to left inferior frontal gyrus. Cortex, 99, 150-165.

Hannah E. Thompson, Holly Robson, Matthew A. Lambon Ralph, Elizabeth Jefferies (2015) Varieties of semantic ‘access’ deficit in Wernicke’s aphasia and semantic aphasia, Brain, 138, 12, 13776–3792.

Funding sources: The Stroke Association, European Research Council

Contact us

York Biomedical Research Institute

ybri@york.ac.uk
Department of Biology, Wentworth Way, University of York, York, YO10 5NG
@@YBRI_UoY

Contact us

York Biomedical Research Institute

ybri@york.ac.uk
Department of Biology, Wentworth Way, University of York, York, YO10 5NG
@@YBRI_UoY