# Transcranial alternating current stimulation to enhance language abilities

> **NIH NIH K01** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $138,106

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Stroke represents the primary cause of adult disability in the United States. A frequent, debilitating
consequence of stroke is impairments in the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, called aphasia,
which has profound impacts on quality of life due to the barriers it places on participation in professional and
social daily life activities. Behavioral intervention—the current standard-of-care—provide some benefit for
persons with aphasia (PWA), but their effectiveness is variable due in part to logistic and financial limitations
that render interventions with the level of frequency, intensity, and duration required for lasting benefits
infeasible for many PWA. Thus, there is a need for novel, time- and cost-effective interventions to expedite and
improve aphasia recovery. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has emerged as a promising
noninvasive brain stimulation technique that may enhance stroke-related disability (motor impairments) and
other neurological and psychiatric disorders, but the potential for improving outcomes specifically for language
impairment has not yet been explored. The career development and research plans of the proposed project will
allow the candidate to establish a T2 translational research program as an independent investigator to
systematically explore the potential for tACS to enhance treatment outcomes in individuals with stroke-induced
language impairment. The career development plan will help expand the candidate’s research program to
include basic and clinical investigations of tACS-induced plasticity and its potential to facilitate language
abilities in unimpaired and impaired speakers. The research plan provides an empirical foundation for this
research program by investigating the neurophysiological mechanism by which tACS promotes language
performance enhancement. The long-term goal of this research is to develop effective intervention approaches
for individuals with acquired language impairment by combining theoretically- and neurally-guided intervention
with treatment-enhancing neuromodulation techniques. The main objective of this proposal is to establish a
best-practice approach for using tACS to support impairments in spoken word production. The central
hypothesis of this proposal is that tACS can enhance word production abilities by modulating endogenous
neuronal activation patterns associated with language. The rationale for the proposed research is that
understanding neurophysiological biomarkers of language impairment and tACS-induced changes in neuronal
pattens of activation may help determine the most effective approach to enhancing stroke treatment outcomes
while extending our basic science knowledge of how tACS modulates neural activity. The proposed research is
significant because it will enable the development of intervention procedures that maximize recovery from
acquired language impairment, combining targeted therapy with tACS to unmask the r...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10906967
- **Project number:** 5K01DC021234-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Denise Y Harvey
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $138,106
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2028-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10906967

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10906967, Transcranial alternating current stimulation to enhance language abilities (5K01DC021234-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10906967. Licensed CC0.

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