| Language | Malayalam |
| Inclusion criteria | Broca's aphasia or anomic aphasia; comprehension relatively preserved; "motivated for speech therapy" |
| Number of individuals with aphasia | 8 (plus 3 excluded: 2 for claustrophobia; 1 for transportation issues) |
| Number of control participants | 4 |
| Were any of the participants included in any previous studies? | No |
| Is age reported for patients and controls, and matched? | No (range 18-68 years; controls were younger) |
| Is sex reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (males: 7; females: 1) |
| Is handedness reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (right: 8; left: 0) |
| Is time post stroke onset reported and appropriate to the study design? | No (6-22 weeks; patients at different subacute stages of recovery) |
| To what extent is the nature of aphasia characterized? | Severity only |
| Language evaluation | WAB translated into Malayalam |
| Aphasia severity | AQ range approximately 50-80 |
| Aphasia type | Broca's or anomic |
| First stroke only? | Not stated |
| Stroke type | Not stated |
| To what extent is the lesion distribution characterized? | Individual lesions |
| Lesion extent | Not stated |
| Lesion location | 7 L MCA, 1 bilateral MCA |
| Participants notes | — |
| Modality | fMRI |
| Is the study cross-sectional or longitudinal? | Longitudinal—mixed |
| If longitudinal, at what time point(s) were imaging data acquired? | Neurofeedback group: T1: pre-treatment/subacute; T2: 1-5 weeks later; T3: 2-6 weeks after T1; T4: 3-11 weeks after T1; T5: 4-12 weeks after T1; T6: 5-12 weeks after T1; no training group: T1: subacute; T2: 2-12 weeks later; controls: T1: start of study; T2: 1-4 weeks later; T3: 3-5 weeks after T1; T4: 4-8 weeks after T1; T5: 7-37 weeks after T1; T6: 12-43 weeks after T1 |
| If longitudinal, was there any intervention between the time points? | 4 patients received 4 additional sessions involving neurofeedback training, while 4 patients received treatment as usual |
| Is the scanner described? | Yes (Siemens Avanto 1.5 Tesla) |
| Is the timing of stimulus presentation and image acquisition clearly described and appropriate? | No* (moderate limitation) (picture naming events consistently located between blocks) |
| Design type | Mixed |
| Total images acquired | probably 964 |
| Are the imaging acquisition parameters, including coverage, adequately described and appropriate? | Yes (whole brain) |
| Is preprocessing and intrasubject coregistration adequately described and appropriate? | Yes |
| Is first level model fitting adequately described and appropriate? | No* (moderate limitation) (event timing will make conditions difficult to disentangle) |
| Is intersubject normalization adequately described and appropriate? | No (lesion impact not addressed) |
| Imaging notes | — |
| Language condition | Neurofeedback (try to activate language areas) |
| Control condition | Rest |
| Are the conditions matched for visual demands? | No |
| Are the conditions matched for auditory demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for motor demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for cognitive/executive demands? | No |
| Is accuracy matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, tasks not comparable |
| Is reaction time matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, tasks not comparable |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Are control data reported in this paper or another that is referenced? | Somewhat |
| Does the contrast selectively activate plausible relevant language regions in the control group? | Unknown |
| Are activations lateralized in the control data? | No |
| Control activation notes | Task activated L IFG and L STG in controls (Fig. 8c), but no data on other regions, and language activations were not lateralized (Fig. 9d) |
| Contrast notes | — |
| First level contrast | Neurofeedback (try to activate language areas) vs rest |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional aphasia vs control |
| Group(s) | Aphasia mean of T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6 (neurofeedback patients) or T1, T2 (no training patients) vs control mean |
| Covariate | — |
| Is the second level contrast valid in terms of the group(s), time point(s), and measures involved? | Yes |
| Is accuracy matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no behavioral measure |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Regions of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 4 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | (1) L Broca's area (IFG pars opercularis and triangularis); (2) L Wernicke's area (pSTG); (3-4) homotopic counterparts |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Individual activations within AAL ROIs on a separate word generation localizer |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | No direct comparison |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | ↓ L IFG pars opercularis
↓ L IFG pars triangularis
↓ L posterior STG
↓ R IFG pars opercularis
↓ R IFG pars triangularis
↓ R posterior STG |
| Findings notes | — |
| First level contrast | Neurofeedback (try to activate language areas) vs rest |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional between two groups with aphasia |
| Group(s) | Aphasia with neurofeedback training (n = 4) mean of T4, T5, T6 vs no training (n = 4) T2 |
| Covariate | — |
| Is the second level contrast valid in terms of the group(s), time point(s), and measures involved? | Somewhat (no treatment effect; second half measures rather than measures of change) |
| Is accuracy matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no behavioral measure |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Regions of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 15 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | (1) L Broca's area (IFG pars opercularis and triangularis); (2) L Wernicke's area (pSTG); (3-4) homotopic counterparts; (5) L MFG; (6) L PrCG; (7) L Rolandic operculum; (8) L insula; (9) L IFG pars orbitalis; (10) L MFG orbital; (11) L SMG; (12) L MTG; (13) L PoCG; (14) L AG; (15) L HG |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | (1-4) individual activations within AAL ROIs on a separate word generation localizer; (5-15) AAL |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | No correction |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | ↑ L ventral precentral/inferior frontal junction
↑ L somato-motor |
| Findings notes | — |
| First level contrast | Neurofeedback (try to activate language areas) vs rest |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional aphasia vs control |
| Group(s) | Aphasia mean of T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6 (neurofeedback patients) or T1, T2 (no training patients) vs control mean |
| Covariate | — |
| Is the second level contrast valid in terms of the group(s), time point(s), and measures involved? | Yes |
| Is accuracy matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no behavioral measure |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Complex |
| Statistical details | Signal change in L IFG and L pSTG ROIs was computed, along with functional connectivity between these ROIs. Neurofeedback values were calculated based on signal change as well as correlation between the ROIs. Group differences in neurofeedback values were compared, but not quantified statistically. |
| Findings | Other |
| Findings notes | Patients received lower neurofeedback values than controls, due to lower signal changes and lower functional connectivity. |
