| Language | UK English |
| Inclusion criteria | No involvement of ACA territory |
| Number of individuals with aphasia | 16 (plus 3 excluded: 2 withdrew after attempting first scan; 1 had severe dysarthria) |
| Number of control participants | 17 |
| Were any of the participants included in any previous studies? | No |
| Is age reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (mean 60 years, range 37-84 years) |
| Is sex reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (males: 11; females: 5) |
| Is handedness reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (right: 16; left: 0) |
| Is time post stroke onset reported and appropriate to the study design? | Yes (mean 4 years, range 6 months-11 years) |
| To what extent is the nature of aphasia characterized? | Not at all |
| Language evaluation | Not stated |
| Aphasia severity | Not stated |
| Aphasia type | Not stated, but all had auditory comprehension and repetition deficits, and all could at least attempt to repeat |
| First stroke only? | Not stated |
| Stroke type | Not stated |
| To what extent is the lesion distribution characterized? | Lesion overlay |
| Lesion extent | Not stated |
| Lesion location | L temporal and parietal cortex; 4 extended into the frontal lobe; no lesions involved ACA territory |
| Participants notes | — |
| Modality | fMRI |
| Is the study cross-sectional or longitudinal? | Longitudinal—chronic treatment |
| If longitudinal, at what time point(s) were imaging data acquired? | Patients: T1: acclimatization/chronic (but used in some analyses); T2: pre-treatment/chronic (not stated how long after T1); T3: post-treatment/~4 weeks later; controls: T1: pre-training; T2: post-training/~2 weeks later |
| If longitudinal, was there any intervention between the time points? | Patients: home-based therapy consisting of auditory discrimination and repetition tasks for 3 or 4 weeks between T2 and T3; control: 2 weeks of similar training using noise vocoded speech |
| Is the scanner described? | Yes (Philips Intera 3 Tesla) |
| Is the timing of stimulus presentation and image acquisition clearly described and appropriate? | No* (moderate limitation) (timing of sentence presentation not described; sparse event-related design, but ITI of only 8 s and consistent linear order of listening and repetition trials could make it difficult to disentangle hemodynamic responses to listening and repeating trials) |
| Design type | Event-related |
| Total images acquired | 168 (patients); 280 (controls) |
| 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) (consistent linear order of listening and repetition trials could make it difficult to disentangle hemodynamic responses to listening and repeating trials) |
| Is intersubject normalization adequately described and appropriate? | Yes |
| Imaging notes | sparse sampling; different task structure in controls (two repetition trials per listening trial) raises concerns about comparisons between groups |
| Language condition | Listening to sentences |
| Control condition | Listening to segmented white noise |
| Are the conditions matched for visual demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for auditory demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for motor demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for cognitive/executive demands? | Yes |
| Is accuracy matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, no behavioral measure |
| Is reaction time matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Are control data reported in this paper or another that is referenced? | No |
| Does the contrast selectively activate plausible relevant language regions in the control group? | Unknown |
| Are activations lateralized in the control data? | Unknown |
| Control activation notes | — |
| Contrast notes | — |
| Language condition | Listening to sentences (patients) or listening to noise vocoded sentences (controls) |
| Control condition | Listening to segmented white noise |
| Are the conditions matched for visual demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for auditory demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for motor demands? | Yes |
| Are the conditions matched for cognitive/executive demands? | Yes |
| Is accuracy matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, no behavioral measure |
| Is reaction time matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Are control data reported in this paper or another that is referenced? | No |
| Does the contrast selectively activate plausible relevant language regions in the control group? | Unknown |
| Are activations lateralized in the control data? | Unknown |
| Control activation notes | — |
| Contrast notes | — |
| First level contrast | Listening to sentences vs listening to segmented white noise |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional aphasia vs control |
| Group(s) | Aphasia (T2 and T3) vs control (T1 and T2) |
| 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? | No, different |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | Significant difference in accuracy of subsequent repetition |
| Type of analysis | Voxelwise |
| Search volume | Whole brain |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | Clusterwise correction with with GRFT and lenient voxelwise p |
| Software | FSL (FEAT 5.98) |
| Voxelwise p | ~.01 (z > 2.3) |
| Cluster extent | Based on GRFT |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | ↑ L insula
↑ L anterior cingulate
↑ R insula
↑ R anterior cingulate
↓ L SMA/medial prefrontal
↓ L precuneus
↓ L posterior cingulate
↓ R SMA/medial prefrontal
↓ R precuneus
↓ R posterior cingulate |
| Findings notes | Findings are approximate since description is partially in terms of networks; at the earlier time point only, patients also showed reduced activity in left ventral prefrontal cortex and right medial planum temporale |
| First level contrast | Listening to sentences (patients) or listening to noise vocoded sentences (controls) vs listening to segmented white noise |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional aphasia vs control |
| Group(s) | Aphasia (T2 and T3) vs control (T1 and T2) |
| 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? | Yes, matched |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | No significant difference in accuracy of subsequent repetition |
| Type of analysis | Voxelwise |
| Search volume | Whole brain |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | Clusterwise correction with with GRFT and lenient voxelwise p |
| Software | FSL (FEAT 5.98) |
| Voxelwise p | ~.01 (z > 2.3) |
| Cluster extent | Based on GRFT |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | None |
| Findings notes | — |
| First level contrast | Listening to sentences vs listening to segmented white noise |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia mean of T1, T2, T3 |
| Covariate | Picture description score (CAT), mean of T1, T2, T3 |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | N/A, no timeable task |
| Behavioral data notes | Referring to accuracy of subsequent repetition; correlation with picture description is not reported |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/midline superior frontal gyrus |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Contrast of listening to vocoded speech and listening to normal speech in controls |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | Same result obtained with age and lesion volume included in the model |
| Findings | ↑ L SMA/medial prefrontal
↑ L anterior cingulate
↑ R SMA/medial prefrontal
↑ R anterior cingulate |
| Findings notes | Increased activation of dACC/SFG was correlated with higher scores on picture description |
