Overview

• The peer-reviewed study in Brain assessed reading aloud in 56 left-hemisphere stroke survivors and 68 healthy controls using high- and low-imageability words to probe semantic contributions.
• MRI lesion mapping pinpointed damage along the superior temporal sulcus as the cause of a loss in the usual advantage of high-imageability words, revealing a breakdown in meaning–phonology integration.
• Authors describe this deficit as a distinct form of post-stroke reading disorder in which survivors can pronounce words but cannot map them back to underlying concepts.
• The findings clarify the neurocognitive basis of semantic reading impairment and suggest new therapeutic targets rather than immediate clinical treatments.
• About 800,000 Americans experience strokes annually, a condition that disproportionately affects marginalized groups, stripping away critical language functions.