Impact of Art Therapy on Brain Connectivity in Recent Post-Stroke Aphasia

A stroke located in the left parieto-temporal junction is associated, in aphasic right-handed patients, with a poor prognosis for language recovery. The role of the right hemisphere in recovering post-stroke aphasia is still controversial. Our hypothesis, based on recent work in imaging, is that early activation of the right hemisphere linked to the practice of the visual arts could facilitate language recovery in extended posterior left strokes that completely disrupt language areas.

The investigators will evaluate, at inclusion and at 6 weeks, the reorganization of functional and structural brain connectivity maps before and after rehabilitation of aphasia with art therapy and standard orthophonic rehabilitation versus a control group that received only standard orthophonic rehabilitation. The investigators will include all consecutive patients with recent ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke with unilateral lesion(s) of the parieto-temporal left junction present on the Diffusion MRI (DWI) performed in acute phase at 24-48h. All patients will undergo 2 MRI with tensor diffusion sequences (structural connectivity) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) resting state sequences (functional connectivity) at inclusion and 6 weeks after rehabilitation with or without art therapy. The investigators aimed to demonstrate that early activation of the right hemisphere related to the practice of the visual arts could facilitate the recovery of language in later strokes completely disrupting the language areas of the left hemisphere.