Effect of Propranolol on Naming in Chronic Broca's Aphasia with Anomia

Abstract

Previous research suggests that the noradrenergic system modulates flexibility of access to the lexical-semantic network, with propranolol benefiting normal subjects in lexical-semantic problem solving tasks. Patients with Broca's aphasia with anomia have impaired ability to access appropriate verbal output for a given visual stimulus in a naming task. Therefore, we tested naming in a pilot study of chronic Broca's aphasia patients with anomia after propranolol and after placebo in a double-blinded crossover manner. Naming was better after propranolol than after placebo, suggesting a potential benefit from propranolol in chronic Broca's aphasia with anomia. Larger follow-up studies are necessary to further investigate this effect.

Keywords:

• β-Adrenergic
• stroke
• aphasia
• language
• norepinephrine
• propranolol

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by a seed grant from The Ohio State University Research Foundation and from the Davis Scholarship. This research was also funded in part by grants from NIDA (R21 DA015734) and NINDS (K23 NS43222), and by the General Clinical Research Center at The Ohio State University funded by NIH (M01-RR00034). Portions of this research were presented at the American Academy of Neurology in 2005 and at the American Society for Neurological Rehabilitation in 2005.