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Anchor lead: For people who have trouble speaking, an electrical current delivered through the skull may help, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Primary progressive aphasia, or PPA, is medicalese for a condition where people have trouble speaking or naming things, but don’t have Alzheimer’s disease or another common cause. Kyrana Tsapkini, a PPA researcher at Johns Hopkins, is using an ancient technique to try to help.

Tsapkini: Transcranium direct current stimulation. We now have the biggest cohort of patients in the country who are being treated with TDCS. Mostly 50% of this current goes through the skull to the brain area underneath.   :15

Tsapkini says it’s not really known exactly why external electrical stimulation through the skull may help.

Tsapkini: What is new is it started with stroke rehabilitation. If electricity helps, what does it do? We want to make the neurons to fire faster. :10

The technique may also help brain cells communicate better with each other. Tsapkini says most people describe the intervention as a kind of buzzing on their scalp and do not report it as painful, but she says those who may be tempted to try using such a strategy themselves to improve memory really shouldn’t, since the consequences of stimulation aren’t known. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

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Anchor lead: People who have trouble communicating may have a condition called primary progressive aphasia, or PPA, and there is a therapy that may help, Elizabeth Tracey reports

When someone has trouble talking, it may have a number of causes, one of which is called primary progressive aphasia, or PPA. Kyrana Tsapkini, an PPA researcher at Johns Hopkins, says brain scans show specific findings.

Kyrana Tsapkini: The areas of brain atrophy go together with the manifestation of it, and the deficit they have. For example, those who have more posterior atrophy, parietal lobe, they cannot put the syllables together.  :15

Tsapkini is using an approach combining electrical stimulation and training to see if such an intervention can help.

Tsapkini: There are two things you are looking at in rehab programs. One is how long results are sustained, so we start with before after, then two weeks, then at two months. And the second is how much do they generalize?   :13

Tsapkini says the electrical stimulation, known as transcranial direct current stimulation, has been is use for decades in an attempt to improve things like memory, so she is optimistic about using it in people with primary progressive aphasia. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.