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Brain_Hawk t1_j0jwbkj wrote

In theory kinda maybe, but only while the tms was on, and even then, we have ventrolateralnprefronral cortical protocols and I have never heard of aphasia as a side effect.

The thing is, the 'disruptive' effects of rtms only last for the period of stimulation which is usually no more than 2 to 4 seconds. So maybe if you got exactly on brocade area and hit it with enough tms you could cause some speech arrest or struggle for a couple seconds. But even then, I have not heard of it being done or this as a possible concern with ventrolateral target sites (which are admittedly rare because they are painful), so I'm a bit skeptical it works So easily.

But... maybe, very briefly. If I was done just right.

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prefrontalobotomy OP t1_j0m8qw1 wrote

I suppose I overestimated the length on time which it can last, certainly it would be harder to see anything interesting happen if TMS duration is that short.

Although I suppose you could have someone listen to a sentence and hit a speech recognition area while they're doing that to disrupt their understanding.

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Brain_Hawk t1_j0mcn84 wrote

There are some prolonged effects, this is why it works as a treatment for things like depression. But those effects are not dramatic. It takes many sessions of r TMS to engage in any kind of substantial brain modulation that lasts for more than an hour or less, and the case like something with Broca's area which is a very well entrenched functional area of the brain, if one was to perform for example a single prolonged rtms treatment session to reduce activity in that region, the effects would be at best extremely subtle. That would think most likely not really able to produce any significant deficit. Because the effect of a session of rTMS and modulating the brain more long term is fairly minimal

As in the video linked above, when you actually fire the rtms you cause some destruction or noise in the underlying cortex, which can be used as an experimental method to see how different parts of the brain are involved in different tasks. For example, I did some work during my PhD where we used our TMS to disrupt memory formation by interrupting activity in the prefrontal cortex. This is different than rTMS used as a treatment intervention, we call this the perturb and measure approach

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redrightreturning t1_j0kclpj wrote

Hi this is a great question! I used to be a speech-language pathologist, specializing in aphasia. Researchers have used TMS (and TDCS) to help people with aphasia recover. I know some folks who conducted some of that research and also sent a couple of my clients to participate in TMS clinical trials.

To my knowledge no one has studied giving people aphasia on purpose. I think it would be kind of unethical to purposely try to impair a patient’s function, even if temporarily.

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Brain_Hawk t1_j0mcv2y wrote

I think it would be virtually impossible to actually give somebody prolonged aphasia. The effects of brain stimulation are fairly subtle. And the case is something like stroke, it can induce some neuroplasticity which can Aid in healing. Likewise, over many treatment sessions it can reduce people's depression by modulating some brain activity. But it's generally not considered to be feasible to induce what essentially amounts to a lesion in anything other than a very transitory Way by measuring functional changes while the rtms is actually on. As in, you have a 4-second pulse and you can see how disrupting activity during that time affects Behavior

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