# Neurolinguistic Investigations of Aphasia and Recovery

> **NIH NIH R01** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $535,746

## Abstract

Project Summary
The overarching goal of this project is to develop effective language treatment protocols for individuals with
stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia. Building on theories of linguistic representation and the neurocognitive
mechanisms of sentence processing in healthy speakers, this project investigates the processes that support
sentence production and comprehension (and treatment-induced recovery) in agrammatic aphasia, using a
series of online processing experiments as well as an experimental treatment study.
This project uses primarily online methods to examine thematic integration processes in sentence production
and comprehension. Thematic integration is the incremental mapping between thematic roles (e.g., Agent,
Theme) and sentence constituents (e.g., subject, object) – i.e., the processes of comprehending or expressing
“who did what to whom.” These processes are essential for successful sentence production and
comprehension but appear to be impaired in agrammatic aphasia. A series of four sentence comprehension
experiments, using eyetracking and ERP, test the hypothesis that impaired thematic prediction contributes to
impairments in thematic role assignment and sentence comprehension accuracy. Four sentence production
experiments, using eyetracking and priming paradigms, examine the effects of impaired thematic planning
processes on sentence production ability. Studies also examine the relation between comprehension and
production abilities, testing the hypothesis that thematic integration deficits are seen across domains in
agrammatic aphasia. Further, an experimental treatment study compares the effectiveness of two novel
extensions of Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF; Thompson & Shapiro, 2005), which train thematic
integration using a TUF-Structural approach, which emphasizes verb-based structural processing and a TUF-
Word approach, focused on word-by-word incremental processing. Consistent with previous work, both
versions of TUF are expected to support improved sentence production, including generalization to simpler
linguistically-related structures; however, TUF-Word is expected to foster stronger gains in comprehension,
due to its emphasis on training incremental (word-by-word) thematic processing. In addition, this project
investigates the neurocognitive mechanisms of treatment-induced language recovery using eyetracking and
sentence production paradigms, as well as the effects of language treatment on functional communication
ability.
The results of this work will contribute to the understanding of sentence processing in aphasia and in healthy
adults, the factors that contribute to effective treatment for sentence-level impairments, as well as the
neurocognitive mechanisms of treatment-induced recovery in agrammatic aphasia.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10070097
- **Project number:** 5R01DC001948-24
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** CYNTHIA K THOMPSON
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $535,746
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1992-09-01 → 2022-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10070097

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10070097, Neurolinguistic Investigations of Aphasia and Recovery (5R01DC001948-24). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10070097. Licensed CC0.

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