The Effectiveness of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Paradigms as Treatment Options for Recovery of Language Deficits in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia.

"Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper."

"This work was cofunded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research and Innovation Foundation (Project: EXCELLENCE/1216/0517). We thank Mr. Karayiannis Demetris, clinical linguist (M.Sc., B.A.), for his contribution to the analysis of linguistic data. The first account is related to stroke-induced disruption of the interhemispheric balance. This disruption leads to reduced inhibition from the affected to the unaffected hemisphere and to increased and deleterious inhibition of the affected from the unaffected hemisphere []. This process is considered maladaptive for language recovery as it blocks the dominant hemisphere, where language processes are established, from resuming their role in language processes []. The decision of applying LF rTMS over the contralesional hemisphere in this research was motivated by the hypothesis that by inhibiting the right hemisphere, residual language supported by the left hemisphere is released from transcallosal inhibitory input by the intact right hemisphere []."