Lewy body diseases (LBDs) represents a group of neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the abnormal accumulation of aggregates of α-synuclein protein leading to the formation of Lewy bodies (LB) and Lewy neurites resulting in cell death. LBDs consists of two major clinical entities - Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with LB (DLB). Vast majority of patients with LBDs either already have mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at the time of the diagnosis or will develop it during the course of the disease. Language dysfunctions in LBDs patients with MCI are often unrecognized, which are difficult to treat, but even subtle changes might lead to impairment of social and occupational functioning with profound effect on their quality of lives. Current pharmacological or surgical strategies are effective for tackling the motor issues of LBDs with very limited effects on other symptoms such as language dysfunctions. Therefore, non-pharmacological approaches are gaining more attention. One of these non-pharmacological strategies is the use of noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques that are able to modulate the brain functions with the effects on human nervous system plasticity. In this proposed project the investigators aim to first describe specific alterations in the language domain in LBDs patients with MCI as compared to healthy controls (HC) and identify the neural underpinnings of these changes using novel combination of advanced multimodal imaging techniques and various analytical methods. Secondly, the investigators aim to use NIBS as a supervised and individualized home-based therapeutical approach to tackle the language dysfunctions.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
DOUBLE
Enrollment
90
tDCS using electric currents to modulate underlying neurons
Masaryk University CEITEC
Brno, Czechia
RECRUITINGsentence comprehension performance - accuracy
the investigators will study comprehension of syntactically complex sentences - accuracy in sentence comprehension task
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
sentence comprehension performance - reaction times
the investigators will study comprehension of syntactically complex sentences - reaction times in sentence comprehension task
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
relation of sentence comprehension performance to cognitive performance
the investigators will correlate sentence comprehension with cognitive functions: z-scores in following domains - memory, attention, executive function, visuospatial function and language function of Short Neuropsychological Battery (Bolcekova et al. 2020)
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - sentence comprehension fMRI task data
The investigators will identify connectivity differences between HC and LBDs patients with MCI in language-related domain-specific and domain-general networks. In the task-based fMRI study, LBDs patients with MCI will show reduced activation and altered functional connectivity within and between these large-scale cortical networks compared to HC.
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - resting state data
Abnormal intra- and inter-network dynamics will be apparent in resting-state fMRI of LBDs patients with MCI as compared to HC.
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - structural MRI data
LBDs patients with MCI will show structural changes in language-related domain-specific and domain-general networks with neural degeneration as assessed by NMS-MRI as compared to HC.
Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension - accuracy
the investigators will investigate the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension of syntactically complex sentences - accuracy in sentence comprehension task (as was described in outcome 1)
Time frame: On the beginning of the study, after completion of two-week stimulation a eight weeks after the baseline assessment
the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension - reaction times
the investigators will investigate the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension of syntactically complex sentences - reaction times in sentence comprehension task (as was described in outcome 2)
Time frame: On the beginning of the study, after completion of two-week stimulation a eight weeks after the baseline assessment
the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension - The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - resting state data
the investigators will investigate the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on resting state data (as was described in outcome 5)
Time frame: On the beginning of the study, after completion of two-week stimulation a eight weeks after the baseline assessment
the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension - The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - sentence comprehension fMRI task data
the investigators will investigate the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension fMRI task data (as was described in outcome 4)
Time frame: On the beginning of the study, after completion of two-week stimulation a eight weeks after the baseline assessment
the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on sentence comprehension - The neural underpinning of sentence comprehension deficits - structural MRI data
the investigators will investigate the long-term effects of repeated sessions of home-based tDCS on structural MRI data (as was described in outcome 6)
Time frame: On the beginning of the study, after completion of two-week stimulation a eight weeks after the baseline assessment
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