Classification of
aphasia is divided according to clinical symptoms, anatomical analysis or neural network. Research of the past 20 years in basic neuroscience and
aphasia rehabilitation has created opportunities for fundamentally different approaches to
aphasia therapy, based on applied neurobiology. The idea of treating
aphasia with neurotranmitter stimulating agents has historical roots dating to ancient times. Since Albert reported that
bromocriptine may improve language deficits in patients with
nonfluent aphasia,
pharmacotherapy for
aphasia is noted. However its effect is contoversial. We hypothesize improvement in naming ability by 1) selectively increasing
dopamine to enhance activation and initiation of verbal output, and 2) selectively increasing
cholinergic activity to enhance verbal memory. We also hypothesize that the balance of dopaminergic system and
cholinergic system controls language function. In most of our recent studies on the
pharmacotherapy of
aphasia, we made the following observations: 1) we found improvement in either verbal fluency or naming or both; 2) improvement tended be most prominent in patients with mild to moderate severity of
aphasia, rather than in patients with severe
aphasia; 3) improvement tended to be correlated with reduction in perseveration; 4) improvement was found with dopaminergic,
cholinergic, and
serotonergic agents.