| Language | UK English |
| Inclusion criteria | — |
| Number of individuals with aphasia | 14 |
| Number of control participants | 10 |
| Were any of the participants included in any previous studies? | No |
| Is age reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (mean 54 years, range 33-76 years) |
| Is sex reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (males: 11; females: 3) |
| Is handedness reported for patients and controls, and matched? | Yes (right: 14; left: 0) |
| Is time post stroke onset reported and appropriate to the study design? | Yes (mean 7 years, range 1.4-37.3 years) |
| To what extent is the nature of aphasia characterized? | Not at all |
| Language evaluation | Sentence-picture matching, lexical decision, phonological similarity, word repetition, sentence repetition, morphological similarity, semantic categorization, sentence acceptability |
| Aphasia severity | Not stated |
| Aphasia type | Not stated |
| First stroke only? | Not stated |
| Stroke type | Mixed etiologies |
| To what extent is the lesion distribution characterized? | Lesion overlay |
| Lesion extent | Not stated |
| Lesion location | L |
| Participants notes | 2 of the 14 patients were not stroke, but were post resective surgery |
| Modality | fMRI |
| Is the study cross-sectional or longitudinal? | Cross-sectional |
| If longitudinal, at what time point(s) were imaging data acquired? | — |
| If longitudinal, was there any intervention between the time points? | — |
| Is the scanner described? | Yes (Siemens Trio 3 Tesla) |
| Is the timing of stimulus presentation and image acquisition clearly described and appropriate? | No* (moderate limitation) (there was only one block per condition per run, so condition could be confounded with low frequency drift; also, the length of the sentences is not stated so it is unclear how well the HRF peak aligns with the sparse acquisitions) |
| Design type | Block |
| Total images acquired | 69 |
| 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? | Yes |
| Is intersubject normalization adequately described and appropriate? | Yes |
| Imaging notes | sparse sampling |
| Language condition | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word |
| Control condition | Listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Is reaction time matched between the language and control tasks for all relevant groups? | Appear similar |
| Behavioral data notes | There appears to be a small RT difference (control condition slower) |
| 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? | Yes |
| Are activations lateralized in the control data? | No |
| Control activation notes | There are more control participants in another paper (Tyler et al., 2010, Cereb Cortex), but the relevant contrast does not seem to be shown in that paper |
| Contrast notes | The contrast is intended to identify regions involved in syntactic processing, however it seems possible that there are semantic differences between these conditions also |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional aphasia vs control |
| Group(s) | Aphasia vs control |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Is reaction time matched across the second level contrast? | Appear similar |
| Behavioral data notes | The two groups showed similar differences between RTs in the two conditions of the contrast |
| Type of analysis | Voxelwise |
| Search volume | Whole brain |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | No direct comparison |
| Software | SPM5 |
| Voxelwise p | — |
| Cluster extent | — |
| Statistical details | Qualitative comparison on pp. 3402-3; each group is presented at voxelwise p < .005 (CDT), cluster-corrected p < .05 with GRFT |
| Findings | ↑ R IFG pars triangularis
↑ R IFG pars orbitalis
↓ L posterior MTG |
| Findings notes | Several other potential differences are apparent in the figure, but only the differences tabulated are interpreted in the text |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | RT difference between early and late targets on grammatical but meaningless sentences (a measure of syntactic processing) |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | Analyses focuses on RT differences between early and late targets, not on mean RT per se |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | L IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Activated for the same contrast |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | ↑ L IFG pars triangularis
↑ L IFG pars orbitalis |
| Findings notes | L IFG showed more activation in patients that had a larger target position effect (indicative of better syntactic processing) |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | RT difference between early and late targets on normal sentences |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | L IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Activated for the same contrast |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | None |
| Findings notes | — |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | RT difference between early and late targets on scrambled sentences |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | L IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Activated for the same contrast |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | None |
| Findings notes | — |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | Damage to L IFG, estimated from T1 signal |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | R IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Activated for the same contrast |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | None |
| Findings notes | No correlation (p = .57) |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | Syntactic processing (presumably the target position effect, though this is not stated) |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Region of interest (ROI) |
| ROI type | Functional |
| How many ROIs are there? | 1 |
| What are the ROI(s)? | R IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis |
| How are the ROI(s) defined? | Activated for the same contrast |
| Correction for multiple comparisons | One only |
| Statistical details | — |
| Findings | None |
| Findings notes | No correlation (p = .41) |
| First level contrast | Listening to grammatical but meaningless sentences and detecting a target word vs listening to scrambled sentences and detecting a target word |
| Analysis class | Cross-sectional correlation with language or other measure |
| Group(s) | Aphasia |
| Covariate | Lesion status of each voxel |
| 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? | Unknown, not reported |
| Behavioral data notes | — |
| Type of analysis | Complex |
| Statistical details | VBM was used to identify any regions where damage was predictive of activation in the L IFG pars triangularis and orbitalis. Tissue integrity was quantified in terms of T1 signal. Clusterwise correction was used, which is not appropriate for VBM. |
| Findings | Other |
| Findings notes | Only in the L IFG itself was damage predictive of reduced activation in the L IFG. |
